


A Poppy Blooms

by LadyBergamot



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Feudal Japan AU, Romance, Sengoku Era AU, Slow Burn, based on fanart, rōnin AU, sexual content to come later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:29:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24445108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBergamot/pseuds/LadyBergamot
Summary: In the midst of feudal wars, the emperor struggles to maintain order among the warring lords while innocents are caught in the crossfire. Desperate to put an end to the violence, he sends his sole surviving daughter and heir to the throne on an important diplomatic mission: to meet with the Emissary of the Shoguns and bring peace.However, dangerous forces collide, and soon the princess finds herself as the mark of a ruthless rōnin-for-hire. Can she prove her mettle and survive this deadly ordeal? Or will her adversary emerge victorious?
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 134
Kudos: 327





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This self-indulgent fic is inspired by the beautiful fanart by @angerykacchan on twitter captioned, "the emperor and the ronin." I'm really nervous about this AU, but I hope you all have fun with it!
> 
> The title is borrowed from the haiku of the same name, written by Katsushika Hokusai
> 
> A/N: This Sengoku Era AU sets the characters in a story based on the Warring Era of Japan. However, this is *not* a story set in actual historical Japan. Sort of like the game Sekiro or the manga Basura, it's still in a fantasy setting.

Edelgard winced at the gale of dust that rolled, like a wave, through her retinue. The irritation made her tug on the reins a bit harder, causing her horse to whinny with alarm. Next to her, a man - masked and helmeted as an anonymous member of the royal guard - glanced at her, alerted by the ruckus.

The sun was nearly setting on the third day of their journey. So far, Edelgard had seen nothing but fields emptied of farmers and villages left desolate. Occasionally, they would spot makeshift graves resting on the base of a lonesome tree, or swords piercing the cracked earth with yesterday’s blood drying on its hilt - reminders of a war she was trying to end. Perhaps they would need to add yet another day to their journey, and until then, the road to the Emissary’s estate will remain long, barren, and arduous.

“You look tired, your highness,” commented Hubert.

Out of everyone in the retinue, he was the proverbial sore thumb that stuck out - though she didn’t like to think of him as anything close to being “sore” (stuffy, perhaps). He rode by her right side, unarmored and unmasked, wearing instead the fashion of foreign parts with the regality of a courtier untouched by war. A year before, Hubert had returned from studying abroad and now served as Edelgard’s closest advisor. The mission to the Emissary’s estate was a delicate one, and she would only have the brightest, if not the most forward-thinking of minds, by her side for it.

Edelgard shook her head in answer. “I’m only worried. It’s been three days, and we haven’t come across a messenger or any sign of the castle.”

Hubert looked to the horizon, his mouth pulled taut by a grimness that had swept through the traveling party. “I suppose repairs to the wagons have delayed us.”

“It’s not only that,” Edelgard interjected while maintaining an outwardly stoic expression. She turned, looking over her shoulder for a quick scan of the soldiers and retainers who walked, weary with the dust that clouded their eyes. “We have been on the road from the capital for three days,” she said quietly, growing rigid in her posture as she subconsciously coaxed her horse into a faster trot, “and yet we have had no sign of bandits or the enemy soldiers.”

Next to her, Hubert heeled his horse so that it trotted faster, catching up to the soon-to-be empress. His brow wrinkled with a grave sort of pensiveness. “You think there’ll be an ambush.”

“Perhaps,” she replied. Edelgard took a moment to fix the train of her silk robe so that it held fast to the sash that cinched her waist. Traveling with the 'imperial gown' as her dress was not exactly Edelgard’s preference, but it was custom - one that many in the capital had hoped was not lost on the wartorn country. “But something’s not right,” she continued in lower tones. “The emissary should have met us with a reception party by now.”

Hubert looked troubled. The furl on his pensive brow grew deeper as he mulled over her suspicions. “Until then,” he spoke after a long pause, “we will make camp.” He punctuated the sentiment with a loud “ _HYA!”_ and heeled his horse to a full gallop. The advisor rode up to the front of the retinue and issued a command to make camp.

Edelgard heard a collective and weary sigh through the column of soldiers and servants, who all awakened from the deadened stare of monotonous travel. Around her, the Royal Guard stood fast and vigilant, waiting for Hubert to return before motioning Edelgard’s horse out of the road. Luckily, they stopped close to a river in an otherwise lifeless field. Its waters gently trickled down, with its more tempestuous current running miles away.

The bluish hue of twilight was beginning to sweep away what warmth the day carried. Close by, the earth cried out against steel as the traveling party pitched their tents.

It was a long day, but she was more than ready to end it.

“Your majesty,” a young vassal greeted Edelgard, helping her unsaddle her horse. “Your tent is this way-”

A sharp cry, piercing and hollow cut through the vassal’s words as it rang through the barren plain.

All heads turned towards the road.

Edelgard fought to speak as she was barricaded in by a bulwark of shields and spears. A pitchy-whistling sound shot close to Edelgard’s cheek.

All were speechless when they discovered an arrow flanking her left foot.

“PROTECT THE PRINCESS!” a loud voice bellowed from afar.

The loud clamor of steel against steel confirmed news of the worst. The highest ranking soldier in her guard unsheathed his katana and immediately stood in front of her. After years of harsh training, their moment had finally come.

“Hubert, what is going on?! What happened?!”

Within seconds Hubert grabbed hold of Edelgard’s arm, indifferent to her yelp of surprise as he rushed her further behind the ranks of soldiers flying to her defense.

The advisor kept to his tightlipped grimace, knowing full well that, by now, the situation must be clear to the otherwise astute princess. Another death rattle was heard, and from the corner of his eye he witnessed yet another one of their guards ambushed by a samurai on horseback. The enemy calvary was closer than expected.

“Your majesty,” he started, “we need to get you back to your horse!” Barely subdued terror lent an edge to his voice, but this was precisely the kind of situation that Edelgard had chosen him for. Calm and collected on the outside, he brooked no protests - not even from his liege lord.

“I must help the men!” Edelgarld flailed defiantly against him.

Hubert trudged on dauntlessly. “If we you die, then _all_ is lost!”

She pushed against his arms and rushed back into the plume of smoke that rose from the road they had traveled mere minutes before.

“Lady Edelgard! STOP!”

Hubert’s cries were lost in the raucous din of swords and fire that surged through the fledgling encampment. A volley of arrows rained down from above, and beneath the protection of a nearby shield, Hubert unflinchingly watched as the unlucky ones fell silently to the trodden ground.

“Lady Edelgard!” he called out again, scanning the chaotic battle for the only woman who was meant to be in the field - the only woman who donned the regal robes of the crowned princess - red and silken amongst the lacquered black metal worn by the retainers.

She was nowhere to be found.

His gloved hands dug into the ground and clasped the dusty earth. “LADY EDELGARD!”

* * *

Byleth leaned towards the cliff, watching the chaos through the whimsical fashion of a cylindrical glass.

“A spyglass,” the captain said aloud, eyeing her piqued expression. “It came from the foreign traders who met with the Emissary.”

She looked on unperturbed, using the instrument to get a glimpse of the battle from afar. “We’re winning,” she remarked indifferently.

“Do you see the princess?” he asked, reeling his horse close to the footed rōnin. “We haven’t won unless we have the princess.”

Byleth whipped the spyglass towards the other side of the field, where lifeless bodies, dressed in the glittering black metal of the royal guard’s armor, piled in a heap. Several of their men seemed to crowd around something, but the dust and the distorted limitations of the glass couldn’t give her a better look. “No, I don’t see her,” she answered blithely; satisfied, Byleth turned to her employer, handing him the instrument as she ambled towards her horse, “but I think I found her.”

“Bring her back to me,” he gruffly commanded, “dead or alive.” The captain peered up at her as she climbed her horse, the piercing gaze of his eyes gleaming through the recesses of his masked helm. “Failure is _not_ an option.”

Yet Byleth could only scoff at the caveat, only mildly offended that her employer could have so little faith in her skills. Her leg kicked into the stirrup as she grabbed hold of the reins. With the click of her tongue, the horse kicked into a gallop. “I’ll have her for you by nightfall.”

The horse rose from its hind legs as it neighed thunderously through the clamor of the battle. Byleth kicked again, and her steed raced down the hill, heading straight for the eye of the storm.

* * *

Edelgard must have heard a hundred blood-curdling screams that day, but her heart rattled anew with each one - unaccustomed to the horrors that piled as bodies before her.

Another piercing cry came from her flank. The princess whipped to her side and raised her sword, deflecting yet another thrust of a spear. “DIE IMPERIAL SCUM!” cried the soldier. He let out another battle cry as he readied for another strike.

Edelgard quickly maneuvered aside, stepping behind him and landing a lethal blow. Without looking, she only heard the sharpness of a breath cut too short as what had been a dangerous enemy fell with a thud on the rocky ground.

“Who’s next?!” she called out with provoking fury. Her lilac eyes, cold and steeled by the bloodshed, widened at bodies of her royal guard, all but decimated before her feet. For a moment (and perhaps, for once in her life), she regretted ignoring Hubert’s pleas.

The enemy’s infantry soldiers were running amok towards her, breaking through the main imperial army’s defensive lines until all semblance of order and sanity crumbled before her eyes. A crowd gathered in answer to her call, trapping her as their eyes gleamed with bloodlust.

Another dusty gust rolled through the field, this time carrying the stench of death and smoke into the wind-strewn strands of her silver hair. “Well?!” Edelgard barked at the nameless crowd. “If not you, then call your lord so I may count him among the dead!”

If victory was impossible and death looming, then she’d rather have answers now than never. Who was attacking them? Did the Emissary betray them? Or was another lord, wary of peace, waylaying her mission? Edelgard raised her sword and pointed it brazenly at her assailants. “ANSWER ME!”

Her command rumbled through the crowd, who huddled back against the roaring severity of her voice.

“ _I’m_ next,” a voice called out.

Edelgard turned to the source, finding a part in the wave of her enemies as a lone samurai emerged.

“And you are?” Edelgard relaxed her shoulders as she readied her stance, raising her sword once more for another strike.

The samurai approached undaunted. A quaint straw hat, worn by many roaming and untethered ronin, concealed the stranger's face. By all accounts, they appeared out of place, clothed in the mundane fabric of a hakama and armed with nothing save an unsheathed katana. The stranger donned no colors or flags to speak of - the very picture of a wandering swordsman. 

The challenger stopped a few feet short of Edelgard, raising their chin to brandish the dimming lifelessness of dark blue eyes. “There is no point in giving my name to the dead,” the stranger blithely answered.

Though Byleth played with cavalier japes, she was in no way undermining the famed prowess of the imperial princess. She paused and laid a gentle hand on the hilt of her sword, thumbing the hilt so it cracked free of its sheath.

For the first time since she rode out from the capital, Edelgard smiled. Like a crack through the barely held mask of her stoicism, her lips tugged with the force of irrepressible laughter. “I commend your courage, soldier,” she said, mildly impressed by the ronin’s lackadaisical approach to war. “And here I thought my enemies have sent me nothing but witless cowards.”

“And here _I_ thought you’d be another helpless princess in need of a rescue,” she retorted with a wan smile, “but I think you’ve yet to prove me otherwise.”

The insult struck. She could see it in the way the princess’s mouth contorted with seething anger. Byleth bent her knee in preparation, keeping a firm, albeit relaxed, defensive stance.

“Enough!” Edelgard whipped her sword to the side, flinging it clean as she resumed her striking pose. She dug her heels closer to the ground, squaring her shoulders with an upraised blade pointed at her new opponent. “Prepare yourself,” she threatened, “for I will come at you with all my strength.”

The smirk on Byleth’s face grew wider. “I’m waiting.”

The princess broke into a sprint, holding fast to her katana as she dealt the first blow.

The pitchy ring of metal echoed throughout the battlefield as Byleth and Edelgard crossed swords. The sheen of their blades glowed like a bluish flame, radiant with the scant rays of the sun as dusk came into view. Meanwhile, the crowd around them watched, mesmerized. The two women’s swords danced with the violence of a storm, sparks flying against each bite of the other’s steel.

Edelgard’s throat was hoarse with her addled grunts, struggling to fight against the exhaustion that began, inauspiciously, to set in her limbs. Much to her dismay, her opponent hardly seemed phased. Like a noh-mask, she faced the imperial princess with unnerving indifference.

She swung again, aiming right for the ronin’s neck, but Byleth parried it with ease and countered with an even faster riposte.

The blow sent Edelgard reeling, knocking her off balance as her robes caught in the mud.

“I pity you, your highness,” Byleth remarked with barely a huff in her breath. “Such beautiful silk caught in the mud… you must be heartbroken.”

Edelgard _would_ have had a response ready, but her assailant gave her no time. She spotted the shadow of the other’s sword as it descended from above, rolling away from the ground and escaping Byleth’s blade by a hair’s breadth. Her hands scrambled for her sword as she propped herself up, readying another stance. “If I were you,” she muttered in between hitched breaths, “I would worry less about your enemy’s dress.”

She let out another sharp cry as she went once more on the offensive, lashing at her enemy with quick blows until she pushed her back to the surrounding crowd.

For her part, Byleth struggled to maintain her balance now that she had provoked the empress, who cut through each of her deflections with unbridled strength. For a moment, her brow furled with frustration, failing to find an opening in between such a quick flurry of attacks.

“Your form is impressive,” she remarked pithily. The two drew back in a momentary respite. “Who is your master?”

Edelgard wiped the corner of her mouth. “You’ll meet her in the next life!”

The two charged at each other once more in an endless clash of swords. In the horizon, the sun had all but set, signaling the looming darkness. The blue tinge of the sky blackened over the column of smoke rising from the battlefield. More cries around the duo pierced the air, and soon the imperial retinue had all but dwindled.

But finally, after what must have been an endless deadlock between the two women, an explosion cut through their fight. It boomed through the expanse, rising like a deafening roar over the field.

Edelgard flailed from the force of it, landing on her stomach against a pile of bodies as her sword flew from her hand. Her eyes searched for the source...

' _Hubert!'_ Relief and tired elation looked to the source of the bomb, no doubt a concoction by her clever retainer. 

“Lady Edelgard!”

The princess looked up from where she lay, searching for the sound of Hubert’s voice as he dashed through the maddened crowds on horseback. “Lady Edelgard,” he repeated desperately, “grab my hand!”

The mare shot through the field, flashing past Edelgard as her retainer snatched her from the ground.

“You’re late,” she chided, nearly delirious with fatigue and from the weight of her injuries. She leaned towards Hubert in heady confusion, her eyes fluttering now that her body was struggling to catch up with the turn of events.

“Forgive me my lady,” he grumbled amidst the confusion, "but it took some time to find you." By the time she closed her eyes, Edelgard could think of nothing but the numbing pain that non-stop fighting had wrought. Next to her, Hubert whipped the reins of his horse with a thunderous crack, racing through the rotting field until they were nearly out of sight.

Meanwhile, Byleth too was flung from the scene. She fell on her back and watched in horror as her mark was spirited away - right before her very eyes. “Get me a horse!” she yelled out. The soldiers of her employer wordlessly obeyed.

Wasting no time, she slapped it into gear and dashed atop as the horse broke into a sprint. “Hya!” she cried out through gritted teeth, half-rising on her knees to speed past the fields in pursuit of the escaped princess.

The two went on in their wild chase, with Byleth - being a much more skilled rider - trailing right behind the panicked retainer.

What had been relief and determination quickly fizzled as Hubert heard the distant hoofs. Their enemy was in pursuit. ' _This bodes ill_ ,' he thought to himself, ' _with the weight of two people, she will easily outrun us_.' Undaunted by the prospect of failure, he lashed at his steed to a devilish speed, unwilling to give up while he still had a chance.

The horses raced until the paths led them to the riverside. Far from the field, they reached the rapids. All the while, the horses dangerously skirted the edge of the banks, wild with terror.

The road narrowed until it was a slithering trail, and soon Byleth found herself parallel to her mark, riding deftly next to Hubert with an outstretched hand.

“Hya!” He whipped the reins once more in frantic panic. He felt his chest tighten as Byleth’s gloved hand brushed dangerously close to the hem of Edelgard’s robes.

“Give her to me!” she called out, “and I’ll let you live!” If they could see her face, trailing as she was behind them, they would see her give a grin with the brazen taunt.

Despite the urgency of their situation, Hubert couldn’t help but scoff with an inward laugh. The rōnin was perhaps the most arrogant individual he had ever met.

Up ahead, he saw that they were nearing the edge of the plain. The rapids were about to meet their end in the upcoming waterfall, its roaring waves misting over like a fog through the ravine. It was now or never.

“Hya!” Hubert motioned as if to urge his horse forward.

Byleth fell for the feint, edging closer to the other horse without noticing what lay ahead.

Gambling everything in this one move, Hubert waited for the right moment. Once he saw the head of Byleth’s horse from the corner of his eye, he knew it was time. His hand jerked the reins violently, letting the animal swerve at a dangerous angle towards Byleth and the rapids surging below them.

For her part, the ronin stared wide eyed as the retainer’s horse clashed violently against hers, sending both steeds flailing close to the edge where the torrential river thundered in her ears.

The plan worked.

Byleth’s horse stepped on a loose ledge, and soon the rocks gave way until the creature flailed desperately against the inevitable free-fall.

_'No!'_

She had been outsmarted. The damned courtier had outsmarted _her_ \- a ruthless and notorious rōnin-for-hire.

For a moment, she felt the world had stopped in the endless second, where the trailing hem of Edelgard’s robes came into view. As gravity jerked her body into a free-fall, she heard the bellows of the river as it threatened to engulf her. Above her, she saw only the pallor of an early evening's sky.

 _'No_ ,' she thought to herself, in the last moments of her life. ' _It can't end like this_.'

True to her word, Byleth snatched the trail ends of the princess’s robes as it billowed in the wind. Her hand wrapped around what must have been her wrist, pulling her down in the instantaneous confusion of her descent.

“LADY EDELGARD!” Hubert cried out, reaching out to the river as he watched the rōnin plummet into the river with the crowned princess in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, the first telescope (in our Western understanding of the device) was gifted to the Tokugawa Shogunate in the early 17th-century. This fun fact is referenced via Byleth looking through the spy glass.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the insanely late-night update, but I had a brain worm. You know how this goes.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been supportive, signal boosted this fic, and left kudos/reviews! I appreciate you all, and you keep me going!

_So tired…_

_It feels so heavy._

_My whole body feels heavy._

_Don’t wake me up, please._

_I just want to stay here…_

_… Where it’s warm._

_Let me stay here._

* * *

The cold splash of water stung against Byleth’s cheek. It lapped up her skin, intermittently rising and falling until it grazed her chin.

_‘Don’t wake me_ …’

Her muddled thoughts seared with pain, and something warm trickled down her temple, burning through the frigid numbness that enveloped her head. Feeling soon returned to her hands as they were caught in the snugness of the shrunken leather gloves. Something rocky and muddy clung to them, but the mystery of why soon gave way to the more pressing concern of her legs. Why were they floating? Why couldn’t she move them?

_‘I’m tired. Please let me sleep…’_

The water rose once more, licking the button of her nose. The empty noise of a vacuum howled in her ear, and the stifling weight of breathlessness engulfed her.

_‘Don’t wake me-‘_

Byleth let out a sharp gasp of air, heaving as she coughed out the water that gurgled from her lungs.

“Wha-…” Words fought to be said as she coughed up more water. Byleth tried to look around, unsettled by her rather dim awareness of her surroundings. All she knew was that she was on all fours, crawling from a sandy bank as the water pushed and pulled at her feet. By the time she could snap her eyes open, a blinding whiteness flashed before it settled for the bleary outlines of black and gray. She could see nothing.

' _Am I dead?'_

She crawled and crawled. By the time the river was safely out of reach, she could feel her weight sink partly in the loose silt of pebble and sand. Something in her backside hurt like hell, and before long she grew conscious of the swelling that had overtaken her cheek.

“Where am I?” was the question she wanted to ask, but Byleth had neither the energy nor the will to follow through. She sidled up to a three, its trunk drooping towards the river as if in frozen yearning for its tumultuous current. There was a hollow where the roots jutted from the hard rocky ground, and Byleth immediately set to taking shelter in its sodden groove.

“What happened?” was the question that followed next. Her eyes closed from the lingering weight of exhaustion. Leaning back against the trunk of the tree, Byleth thought back to the events she last remembered.

The whinny of her horse as it struggled to keep balance; the ethereal billowing of red silk as it flashed before her eyes, and a woman - small and barely conscious - clinging to her as they plummeted together before crashing into the hard glass of running water…

“The princess!” she cried aloud as she rose from her stupor.

Byleth stumbled out of the hollow, catching herself as control slowly returned to her limbs. The deal she had made with her employer was a miserable failure, she now realized. She had promised nightfall, but, based on the cheery blue sky and the sun inching towards its zenith, it was a brand new day (if not even _more_ new days than the last she could recall). What’s worse, the princess she had promised - dead or alive - was nowhere in sight. Did that courtier get her back? Did she really fall in with her? Could she collect payment if there was no-

Something bright - shiny compared to the dreary verdure of the riverside forest - caught Byleth's eye. A body was drifting close to shore, but it was the memorable silken red robes - tarrying along the driftwood that floated by - which gave her away.

‘ _Speak of the devil,’_ Byleth thought with a sigh. She limped towards the river, making a violent splash as she kicked through the weight of her drenched hakama.

The princess was a painting - or at least close to one. Byleth grabbed hold of her waist, pulling her away from the deeper part of the ford and paddled back to the safety of the sand bank. The very image of her kimono billowing in the water was ethereal in itself. There was even something watery in how limpid her hair looked, floating like tendrils in the water.

Perhaps it was from the cold, but there was a wan pallor to her complexion and a deadness to the weight of her limbs. Byleth didn’t know exactly why, but something in her chest pinched, as if afraid or worried that maybe… just maybe… _No_ -... Byleth bit back an inexplicable noise welling in her throat. ‘ _Is she... ?’_

The still-unconscious princess coughed violently once Byleth plopped her down on the bank. Her eyes pinched shut, it was unnerving to watch as her shoulders trembled violently with each spurt of water that funneled out of her mouth and nose.

Byleth let out a sigh.

… Of relief? What for? Why did a lightness sweep over her, letting her shoulders slouch and her chest rise and fall with the steadiness of calmed breaths?

Perhaps it was instinct. Human instinct? Her master once taught her that all life was precious, ‘even those of your enemy.’ Sitting by her side, looking down on her motionless figure, Byleth struggled to find the precious life for which her heart had instinctively and protectively searched. It seemed barely there.

“Dead or alive,” her employer had said.

Looking at the imperial princess, Byleth gazed attentively at the softness of her features, the returning rosiness of her cheeks, and the glistening radiance (almost like silk itself) of her silver hair. She had heard rumors of the princess’s beauty. It was the talk of the empire, especially amongst Shoguns who vied for power in whatever way they could. But seeing her up close, the princess now appeared to Byleth as certainly less mythical and decidedly more _real_ \- living, (barely) breathing flesh. _Beautiful_ , was one word for it, or so she supposed.

“Dead or alive,” the rōnin parroted to her unconscious and tentative companion, “don’t make me regret keeping you alive.”

And with that, Byleth carried the slumbering princess over her shoulder, bringing her to the same hollow where she took shelter just moments before.

For a moment, she contemplated her situation and mulled over possible courses of action. There were two things she had to figure out: where they were and how much time, exactly, had passed. At best, she and the princess floated down the river for a day and a half, and given the speed of its current, they were therefore at least a day ahead of any search party deigning to make a rescue. At worst, _days_ had passed, and her employer had moved on and presumed both to be dead, robbing her of her much-earned reward.

_‘No_ ,’ Byleth shook her head, _‘that won’t do.’_

The rōnin got up and proceeded to scan the surroundings for twigs, bramble, and anything flammable. A slight chill rolling down her spine reminded her that they needed a fire, and given how long they were both in the water (still donning their drenched clothes) they could both die from the cold.

Fire. Bindings (the princess _will_ try to escape). And, lastly, a general sense of where they were.

These are the things she needed to get in order.

Following the river would’ve been easy enough, but Byleth was sure that the irksome retainer would be prowling the edges of the forest for a search. She’d have to trudge through the forest if she was going to escape notice _and_ prevent the princess from desperately fleeing.

The list of things in her head was at least reassuring, and days roaming the countryside for mercenary work prepared her well for the ordeal up ahead. Dead or alive, Byleth was contracted to “bring the princess” to her employer, and she was not about to lose out.

“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” There was an edge to her voice that dripped with both mockery and admiration. She piled together the dry wood near the tree and began to speedily rub together some stone and flint for the much-needed friction. “Out of all the jobs I’ve had to do, you’re the only one who came closest to making me fail.”

No answer. The princess lay still, with only the faint rise and fall of her chest to belie the spark of life that slumbered within.

“You better be worth it,” Byleth grumbled to herself. She poked at the embers that ate into the pile of twigs. A sliver of smoke rose, and soon warmth glowed softly before her. In a little while, she would have a fire.

* * *

Something smelled good.

That was Edelgard’s first thought when she began to come to her senses.

It was the smoky aroma of meat roasting over a fire. It wasn’t quite decadent, like the fanfare one was used to in the imperial capital. There was an earthiness to the smell, and the smell of burning wood was decidedly more overpowering. Still, a dizzying emptiness in her stomach made her yearn for more of the more delicious scent, and soon her eyes fluttered open, defiant against the weight of fatigue and exhaustion as her sight welcomed the soft, orange glow of a campfire.

“Ah, you’re awake,” a familiar voice called out.

Edelgard groaned as she felt an aching throb in her temples. Rolling to her side, she saw the disjointed outlines of a woman squatting close to the fire. “Who-...” She blinked once or twice, trying to make the outlines _less_ blurry.

“Take it easy,” the woman cautioned. “You’re all bruised up from the fall. Might be a good idea to just lay there until the rabbit’s cooked.”

Edelgard’s eyes fixed on the ‘rabbit’ - a small amorphous chunk of meat - roasting on a stick in her hand. “Who are you?” she tried again, her voice low and steady. Around them, the night was dark. Crickets chirped loudly in the surrounding foliage, unseen yet nevertheless present as the two lay in the stillness of the grove.

The woman turned once more, peering over her shoulder against the yellow glow of the fire. “If I tell you,” she said, “will you promise not to run?”

Edelgard was alarmed, to say the least. Her eyes widened upon hearing such a suspicious answer, prompting her to flinch against the jerky movements of her panic. ‘ _Wait-..._ ’ She nearly jumped (if she could) from where she lay in the hollowed out groove, only to lift her arms before her eyes and to see them crossed at her wrists, bound tightly by some sort of twine.

“A precaution,” piped up the stranger, who _sounded_ amused (and not at all surprised) at Edelgard’s shock.

The princess violently kicked back against the jutting root of the tree, squirming against her snug confines until she could roll out of it. She landed with a thud, her stomach flat against the dampened soil of the forest floor. The pain alone made her cry out.

The stranger’s shadow loomed as she approached. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Your ankle is swollen, and there’s a rather deep wound along your side that needs closing.”

_Along my side-...? How could she-...._

The horror didn’t end with the bindings. Edelgard was mortified to look at her bare shoulder, to feel the gravelly earth cool and flush against her exposed chest. What’s worse, squinting upward revealed even more, that the woman before her was _also_ naked, save for the bindings and loincloth that allowed her _some_ semblance of modesty.

“My clothes?!” Edelgard cried out less in fear and more out of seething rage. If she had been in full health, she would’ve pounced on this depraved stranger and gutted her like prey. But given her present limitation, she settled instead for an interrogation. “What did you do with my clothes?!”

“Easy!” the stranger coaxed her, hunching down so her taller stature no longer kept her face out of view. “They’re over there,” she pointed behind her where the familiar red silk draped motionless over a spindly branch. Next to her kimono hung the dark bluish green fabric of a hakama. “You were shivering in your sleep, so I figured I could get you out of wet clothes and put you by the fire-”

“ _You!_ ”

A droplet. A tiny, almost weightless droplet, but it was enough to burst the dam.

Edelgard rose from where she lay, struggling to keep balance with her bound hands. “ _You’re_ that rōnin!” Her furled brows wrinkled with the blunt realization of what happened, or worse, what _might_ have happened. “Where’s Hubert?!” she asked, frantic as she fought to get up on her feet. “What have you done?!”

Yet not a word or reaction came from the rōnin in question, who watched nonplussed by her theatrics. It was clear that their new reality was at least beginning to dawn on the princess.

“Answer me!”

Again, not a word. Instead, she stayed tightlipped and keenly observant, staring with those lightless blue eyes.

Edelgard swayed against the strength of her own flailing movements, unable to keep balance against the vertigo of having _just_ woken up. She stepped to the side, away from the fire in a frenzied attempt to search for a weapon - _any_ weapon - and make her daring escape.

“I _still_ wouldn’t do that if I were you!”

The repeated warning was almost timed perfectly. Within seconds, Edelgard fell forward, letting out a blood-curdling cry as white heat speared upwards from her ankle and her chest landed violently against a protruding tree root. She nearly cried, not from the pain, but from the added obstacle of a sprained ankle (among other injuries) that could make escape from an otherwise healthy master swordsman near impossible.

“Here’s the deal-...”

Edelgard was fuming from where she lay, her nostrils flaring as her face hovered only slightly above the sodden ground. But even that undignified position was short lived. The stranger lifted her up by the arm, turning her so they faced one another.

“You get three questions - give them to me one at a time,” she offered sternly, staring down with callous indifference, “and I answer as best as I can.” The ronin made good with her word by propping Edelgard back up, using her bound hands as support so she could speak, frankly and clearly.

Light from the campfire flickered across the strangers face, casting stark shadows on her impassive countenance. That face - it was one that uncannily resembled the lifelessness of a noh-mask. Edelgard had encountered it once on the battlefield, and now she faced it once more. Her heart beat steadily yet harshly against her chest, and the cold that once numbed her body melted into something else - an uncomfortable heat that beaded like sweat down her temple. The princess stared back at her captor, matching her stern countenance with an icy exterior. Edelgard maintained her composure, only letting slip an audible gulp as she faced down what appeared to her as nothing short of an indomitable will.

“Where’s Hubert?” she asked, but she saw confusion, followed by irritation flash over the stranger’s face, prompting her to quickly add, “my retainer?”

The stranger blinked back her surprise, mulling over the stiffness in Edelgard’s voice. It was clear that the stranger often chewed on her lower lip when deep in thought, and she did so again before cocking her head to the side. The unreadable blankness of it all unnerved Edelgard, who was normally so good at reading others.

“I don’t know,” finally came her answer.

“That’s-!”

“All I remember,” she continued, ignoring Edelgard’s disruption, “is grabbing you from his horse, and then we fell into the river.”

Edelgard stared back, dumbfounded by the rather quick turn of events. She herself remembered less than the rōnin, for everything was a blur once Hubert swept her away from the battle. Her mouth opened and closed, pouting and smoothing as she struggled to find the right words.

“Remember,” the other woman warned, “you only have two more questions.”

An argument hung at the tip of Edelgard’s tongue, but given her sprained ankle, her injuries, and the fact that she was actually _still_ mostly naked, she didn’t have much of a choice. She swallowed back her pride, literally, and proceeded with the same detached disdain.

“What do you plan to do with me?” This time, Edelgard blurted out her question with a provocative gleam in her eye, daring the rōnin to try her luck at uttering an unfavorable answer.

Again, the stranger paused, seemingly taking her time to ponder the question with as much gravity as she gave the first one.

Impatient, Edelgard raised both her arms, brandishing her bound hands defiantly. “Clearly you don’t plan on killing me.”

“Not anymore, at least,” the rōnin replied with a tired sigh. Next to them, the campfire crackled with burst wood, growing brighter and hotter as it raged on. “My employer commanded that I bring you to him, dead or alive,” she continued, “and I plan on doing just that.”

“And let me guess, the ‘dead or alive’ part depends on how well I behave?” she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

The rōnin clicked her tongue, mildly impressed at Edelgard’s powers of deduction. Still, a cheekier grin curled her lip, mischievous as she dared ask, “Was that your third question?”

Edelgard rolled her eyes, affecting an exasperated gesture as she did her best to cross her arms (bound as her hands were) against her chest. “You know the answer to that.”

The stranger let out a hearty laugh. She threw her head back, sighing her exhaustion as she shook her head. “You’re a funny one. Did any of the sycophants at court tell you that?”

“My third question,” Edelgard cut in, her patience thinning in the face of such boorish behavior, “who are you?”

The question was simple enough, and it took less time for preponderance. The stranger ran a hand through her hair, averting her gaze as she quickly mulled the situation and gave a ready answer.

“I’m a sword for hire, and that’s all you need to know.”

Edelgard nearly rose in indignation. “That can’t be all!” She sidled up closer on her knees, glaring at her captor with more questions written all over her knitted brows. “Do you not have a name? A liege lord? Surely a master swordsman such as yourself is aligned with a shogun-”

“Whatever you think I am,” she interjected, “I’m nothing more than a mercenary. For now, I am contractually obliged to an employer who wants your head - whether that’s literally the case, we shall soon find out,” she paused to shrug at the cheeky suggestion, “but know that I have no master.”

“Then a name.” Edelgard persisted. Yet the stranger seemed unbothered, turning to attend to the fire and their now-burning dinner. “Surely you have a name.”

At first, the rōnin said nothing. She turned and twisted the skewered rabbit haunch, watching as she peeled off with another sharpened stick the charred layers of the meat.

“Byleth,” she answered after a few more moments of silence. “My name is Byleth.”

“Byleth,” Edelgard repeated back.

After a while, the two sat close to the fire, watching with hungry stomachs as their measly dinner roasted into something sinewy and tender. The aroma was already soaking the air around them.

“Tell me Byleth,” Edelgard chimed, affecting a serious demeanor while suppressing traces of subdued laughter.

Byleth eyed her with suspicion, not at all afraid to show how irksome it is that the princess lost no time in acting with such unseemly familiarity.

“On the battlefield, you said you do not give your name to the dead.”

Byleth looked at her, taken aback by the rather spontaneous resurgence of a rather specific memory. “What of it?”

“You just revealed your name to me,” she answered coolly. “Does this mean you no longer have plans to kill me?” There was a provocation in the princess's tone, one which showed to Byleth just how difficult she planned to be.

To that Byleth snickered. She threw her head back, incredulous at such a delightful observation. “You really are funny, princess.”

Edelgard said nothing. Instead she let out another sigh, miffed at how quickly the other had stalled her momentum.

The two sat there, the air thick with their individual and secretive contemplations. Edelgard would start and stop, unsure whether to broach the subject of her involvement in the war or if she should instead save her energy for another daring escape. Byleth, meanwhile, was content losing herself in the absentminded task of roasting the haunch. The day had been long after all, even if they spent most of it unconsciously drifting in a river.

Finally, after what had seemed like ages, the skewed rabbit haunch shone like gold against the campfire. It was ready.

“Take this,” Byleth offered as she handed the skewer to Edelgard. “Eat up, and get your rest. We rise at dawn.” Before the princess could get a word in, Byleth heaped a ready mound of dirt onto the fire, letting it hiss coolly until it was snuffed out entirely. What had been a dimly lit fledgling camp was now engulfed in pitch black.

Edelgard let out a small yelp of surprise, shocked by the sudden onset of the evening gloom.

“The moon is bright. Use that to eat,” Byleth commanded in low tones. She sensed in Edelgard's silence another remonstrance waiting to be uttered. “Bandits roam at night,” she tacked on by way of a (poorly wrought) explanation.

Of course, Edelgard wasn’t so naive. Although bandits indeed preferred to ambush innocents at night, she knew that someone such as Byleth was more than capable of handling such novice marauders. No, she was hiding from someone else entirely. Putting out campfires was a tactic she was well aware of - one that would waylay the unwanted eyes of a search party.

The situation was dire, to say the least. It seemed that, in addition to unparalleled combat prowess, the rōnin had a rather fair mind for strategy. Escaping her won’t be so easy.

“Here,” Byleth suddenly said.

Edelgard nearly jumped when she felt fabric draped over her shoulders. “What are you-”

“It’s my hakama,” Byleth answered candidly. “It dried faster than your kimono.” Even in the dark, the rōnin could read the lines of bewilderment on Edelgard’s face. “Use it to stay warm. I don’t want to have to nurse you out of a fever.”

“Oh,” was all Edelgard could say in reply.

Beneath the moonlight, scant as it was in its crescent phase, Edelgard searched for the shadowy outlines of Byleth’s figure.

“Eat,” Byleth repeated her order.

Edelgard didn’t necessarily want to obey, but her stomach growled impetuously once the aroma wafted to her nose. She looked at her food with a wanton sort of hunger, searching for sumptuous traces of heat from the now-defunct campfire, which still glowed in small embers along the charred parts of the skewer.

Meanwhile, Byleth sat back and stared into the darkness where the campfire used to be. She sat cross-legged, waiting in silence as the princess consumed her food with a ravenous hunger.

‘ _Tomorrow_ ,’ she thought in the hazy silence of her mind, ‘ _the real battle begins.’_

* * *

Hubert whipped the reins as he urged his horse faster, riding down the road way ahead of the remaining members of Edelgard’s retinue.

“My lord!” called out one of the vassals trailing behind. They came upon a bulwark of trees, where the dirt path gave way to unruly foliage. With the scant moonlight that night, the darkness was impenetrable. “We cannot search the forest at night,” the young man cautioned. He slowed his horse to a trot in front of Hubert, who halted his steed abruptly before the new obstacle.

“Out of my way,” he commanded, his tone low yet bristling with rage.

The vassal, a mere samurai in training who escaped the gruesome battle with a few scars and minor injuries, drew back in fear. He had brushed against death once already. He did not wish to do so again.

“He’s right, Hubert,” called out Ferdinand, who trotted behind.

Heir to one of the shoguns loyal to the crown, Ferdinand was another noble and future advisor for the crowned princess. His party rode close to half a day behind the imperial retinue, carrying most of the supplies that required the slower pace of traveling by foot. Yet this rather incidental position left the young courtier unscathed, free to pick up the remains of Edelgard’s army before falling to a retreat.

“If we search for her in there, _now_ ,” he argued, careful to level his caution in placating tones, “then we will lose you _and_ the remainder of the survivors. Edelgard would _never_ forgive me for that.”

Hubert kicked his horse to a half-gallop, stopping with a whinny right before Ferdinand’s steed. “ _Lady_ Edelgard,” Hubert emphasized mere inches before his rival’s face. “You would do well to remember that.”

“I understand you are upset,” Ferdinand coaxed, exasperated with his old friend’s antics, “but you must think with your head. To search the forest now is mad! Foolish even!”

“That reminds me,” Hubert cut in, shifting his tone to one that rang with piqued interest, “tell me Ferdinand, did you specifically request to ride with the supply party? Or was that a rather convenient coincidence?”

“What are you saying?!” Ferdinand nearly jumped off his horse in disbelief. He answered the advisor’s implication with renewed confidence, perking up his chin while declaring, "If you are to call me traitor, then speak plainly!" 

“And yet here you are, while she is nowhere to be found! What else can explain this but treachery?!” Hubert sat back as his horse gathered the panic of the situation, ambling to and fro in its confusion. “No one else but the emperor, the prime minister, _and_ yourself were made aware of our mission.” The disgruntled retainer steadied his steed, delicately balancing while weaving together the suspicions that had been brewing ever since they were attacked. “Someone betrayed us.”

“Your accusation wounds me,” Ferdinand countered, his lip quivering with barely subdued anger. “How _dare_ you question my loyalty! I grew up with Edelgard. She is one of my closest friends, as you are mine!””

“Then who else?! Who else would have alerted our enemies to our location?!”

“My lord!” another voice cried out from afar.

Another rider came galloping into the scene, carrying torches and another party of survivors. The horses of the rest of the search party neighed violently against the influx of noise and resentment that had rendered the spring air stifling. “We’ve gathered the remaining survivors,” reported the scout, “but the enemy marches towards us. It seems they were apprised of our escape!”

Hubert’s eyes widened in his shock. “What?!”

“If we leave now,” the scout continued, “we may escape unscathed.”

For a moment, both courtiers stared at each other, sharing in the mixture of terror, confusion, and resolve as it flashed in their expressions in the same instant.

“We’re not finished,” Hubert warned as his horse trotted past Ferdinand. He whipped his reins again, turning his steed around before galloping back to camp.

Ferdinand watched, his face contorted from the wounding implications of treachery and disloyalty - one that he never thought he’d hear from a close friend. The remaining vassals and samurai looked to him in their confusion.

“You heard the man,” he urged on. “Back to camp! HYA!”

His horse kicked back against the command, and before long the entire search party regrouped into a column and rode out into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

Edelgard’s mouth felt raw and tender against the tree bark. The taste of it was earthy and bitter as she clamped down and suppressed a scream.

“It’s just some herbs,” Byleth chided her unruly and, frankly, loud patient. Despite these interruptions, she managed to pressed on with her work, pushing the mashed mix of numbing herbs onto the gaping wound. “Now stay still, or this will hurt worse.”

This time, Edelgard hissed from the pain. Yet knowing it was coming helped, if only a little. Her voice cracked more muffled noises against the broken tree branch in her mouth. She glared up at her impromptu doctor, hands bunching up the dirt until her nails felt the cool touch of sod.

“There,” Byleth said with a teasing smile, “all finished! Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” She rubbed her hands together and wrapped the medicine back into a pouch. All that was left was to bind the wound shut. In the absence of thread and needle, rags torn from the princess’s kimono would do. Fortunately, the wound wasn’t so deep that it couldn’t close on its own (given time), but if only silk held together better…

Byleth neither blinked nor hesitated when she slowly (though ungently) turned Edelgard from her stomach to her side. The princess was less unphased of course, biting down on her clamp with thinly-veiled anger. The rōnin didn’t even wait for the pain to subside before she gingerly wrapped the torn fabric around her waist, brusquely tying an unforgiving knot over where the poultice met the wound with a singeing burn.

“Lovely handiwork,” Edelgard remarked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Have you ever considered switching professions? I’m sure you’d make for a wonderful doctor.”

“Don’t blame me princess. Blame the rocks that gashed your side when you fell into the river.” The rōnin wagged a smug finger at Edelgard, who lay helpless on the ground through the dressing.

“And who is the reason why I even fell into the river in the first place? I wonder…”

“Who knows? Perhaps ask your very capable retainer,” Byleth quipped, feigning a contemplative shrug of her shoulder.

Edelgard bit her tongue at the rather unwarranted jab at Hubert. She was tempted to say something in his defense, but then thought better of it.

For a while, the two said nothing. Byleth busied herself, wrapping more strips of the torn kimono sleeve around her so-called ‘patient.’ Yet something caught Byleth’s eye in the midst of rolling - a pink ridge of flesh that ran like lesions over the princess’s otherwise unmarred back. Turning her over, she spotted the same marks squarely between her breasts.

“You’re staring,” Edelgard said, averting her gaze. She steeled her face in an effort to mime her captor’s unsettlingly aloof countenance.

Byleth said nothing at first, her mouth pulling taut from the grimace she tried to suppress. Still, not even she could look unflinchingly at the scars - old yet haggard in appearance. “Your scars,” she finally mumbled.

Edelgard pouted, annoyed at the other woman’s uncanny ability to stare at the marks in question. “They were from a long time ago.”

“One over your heart?” There was an edge of skepticism in Byleth’s voice, which readily saw into the princess’s veneer of indifference. It was clear, based on how Edelgard averred, that the scars (though inflicted long ago) have yet to fully heal.

“Like I said,” Edelgard continued sternly, “it was from a long time ago.”

As if on cue, Byleth finished her wrapping. The last of the strips were knotted over the tender wound.

Edelgard didn’t wait to sit up. She shoved Byleth away with her shoulder as a gesture for privacy, before slipping on what was left of her dress. It wasn’t pleasant, to say the least, to be so roughly handled for her injuries, but more than that, Byleth had seen what Edelgard was unwilling to lay bare. She waited for the other woman to leave, keeping her gaze fixed elsewhere as the rōnin ruminated before her silently. Perhaps, Edelgard thought, it was better to stay motionless through these mildly annoying bouts of contemplation than provoke another series of uncomfortable questions.

Finally, Byleth shrugged. “It does not concern me, after all,” she added, as if she had picked up the trail of a now-fading conversation.

Truth be told, this “chat” was one of the very few calms the two had experience, stormy as their first day traveling had been. As Byleth had promised, they rose at sunrise, and the trek was slow given Edelgard’s sprain ankle and bound hands. Navigating a forest with unruly foliage was difficult for one able-bodied person, but the princess’s injuries were severe. The sun hadn’t even reached its zenith when, adding to her problems, the wound from her fall reopened midstep. Now they were stuck - caught in the depths of a forest that wove like a labyrinth for the weary travelers.

“Well,” Edelgard began again, puzzled that her captor hadn't commanded that she get up and walk, “what next?”

“Good question,” Byleth answered, but an absentminded glaze over her eyes showed a piquant inattentiveness that easily trailed off with the soft rustling of the wind. She looked outward, scanning the surrounding bulwark of trees for the faint outlines and shapes of… something. “It’s better if you don’t walk.” Byleth ambled forward, resting her hand on her sword hilt as she relaxed her other arm within the billowy sleeve of her hakama.

Though keenly aware of her own immobility, Edelgard watched with piqued interest as her captor paced about. She could tell that the rōnin wasn’t conversing with her. No, far from it. She was muttering to herself, glancing about the forest with observations she wasn’t about to openly share with the princess.

“Worried for me?” Edelgard asked, laying weary hands over the flat of her stomach. The question was meant in jest, but her deadpan delivery lent it a biting sarcasm. It was strange, she thought, to feel the bare skin of her forearms against the ground and on the remnants of her silken sash. The billowy sleeves - pretty as they were - had previously bogged her down with their cumbersome weight. Now they were gone, wrapped and bloodied over the wound which refused to close.

“Of course,” answered Byleth, somewhat delayed in her response. Her brows were knitted in confusion, as if the answer was obvious. “If you walk now, you’ll only reopen the wound again and slow us down.”

“You could always kill me,” Edelgard puzzled, playfully webbing her fingers over her stomach. “I’m sure that would help you travel faster.”

Byleth laid a flat hand over a tree she had passed, looking back as she closed the distance between her and her motionless prisoner. “Tempting.”

Edelgard craned her neck forward. “I was joking!”

“I’m not!” The rōnin’s voice echoed through the glen, ringing hollow and eerie despite the otherwise noisy clamor of the forest.

‘Then why won’t you kill me?’ The jab hung at the tip of Edelgard’s tongue, savoring and waiting until it all but vanished with the passing moment. The sun shone brightly from where she sat, peeking through the dense bramble of branches and vines until it barely reached the forest floor.

“Come.” The outline of Byleth’s silhouette returned to Edelgard’s view, like a shadow crowding out what little sunlight they had. She didn’t exactly wait for a response either, for she indelicately grabbed the princess by both arms.

“What are you- s-stop!” Edelgard’s squeal of protest rang through the forest. “What is the meaning of this?!” But her words and remonstrances died out against the sharp painful cry of her wound stretching with her frantic movements.

“We’ll be faster this way,” Byleth deadpanned.

“You can’t be serious!” Edelgard flailed her arms and legs, swatting away Byleth’s more dexterous hands.

“Hold still!”

“Get your hands off me!”

The two were lost in a storm of limbs and shouting, wrestling through the muddied grass as one sought dominance over the other. In the midst of the fray, Edegard’s bound hands caught hold of Byleth’s sword. Her eyes widened with the unexpected yet nevertheless opportune moment, grasping the hilt and trying with all her might to-...

“Not so fast!” Byleth almost won out, straddling over the princess’s waist to calm her. She deftly caught the bindings around her prisoner’s wrist, pinning them over her head before she could steal her weapon.

All was silent in the glen save for the hitched breaths of the two adversaries - their limbs locked after such a fierce fumble.

“Let me make one thing clear.” Byleth leaned in, her face hovering slightly above the princess. “My employer demanded that I bring you to him, dead or alive.”

Edelgard winced as she felt a harsh pinch in her wrists. Byleth was tightening her grip, pressing her captive’s arms firmly against the rocky soil in a show of superior strength.

“I am not one of your vassals. I am not some courtier you can order about, nor am I a retainer who will coddle you.” The rōnin’s words struck in terse staccato.

Looking up at her, Edelgard faced that familiar noh-mask - a callous sort of indifference that rendered her blank expression so ominous.

“I am your enemy,” Byleth reminded her. The hollow candor in her voice rang eerily with a not-so-hollow threat. “Right now,” she paused and reached with her free hand for something close to her thigh, “I am contemplating how much easier my job would be if I had just killed you sooner.” The sound of metal sliding against metal was all Edelgard needed to hear. “Don’t make me regret my choice.”

Meanwhile, Edelgard kept her eyes steadily on Byleth’s, refusing to break the gaze even after she felt a knife edge against her chin, shining brightly beneath her view as it reflected daylight.

“Do you understand?”

Still hovering over her, Byleth’s gaze remained squarely on Edelgard, whose hitched breaths belied the shakiness of her resolve before such pressure. She was faintly aware of how the rōnin kept her hands pinned and how the other’s weight suppressed any possible resistance from her lower limbs. Everything - from killing her to escaping her - seemed impossible.

“I said, ‘do you understand’?” Byleth’s tone was more biting this time. She even tightened her grip on Edelgard’s wrists, stopping only when the princess bit back a small cry of pain.

“Yes,” Edelgard answered coolly, swallowing back the taste of sweat and dirt pooling in her mouth. “I understand.”

“Good.” And just as quickly, Byleth withdrew the knife, sheathing it back into the leather scabbard strapped around her lower leg.

‘Clever,’ thought Edelgard, eyeing how prepared the rōnin was. Only a professional would know to conceal weapons in every part of her body.

Byleth, however, already seemed to have forgotten the incident. In one fell swoop, she lifted Edelgard from the ground and swung her onto her back, carrying the princess like a pack - arms and legs perched over her waist. She didn’t wait to start walking. Her brisk pace was the only answer she cared to give.

“The wound,” Byleth said out of the blue.

Edelgard only turned a glance in response.

“I didn’t reopen, did it?”

There was a bounce to Byleth’s gait - one that Edelgard found uncomfortable and, if unchecked, potentially dangerous for her injuries. The princess haplessly rested her arms over the rōnin’s back, staring aimlessly as light flickered through the trees they had passed.

The jerky movements of being hauled like dead weight stung, literally. Although, Edelgard had to admit, it stung less than the blow to her dignity her captivity had been. How could she fight back? How could she escape? As Byleth navigated the arboreal labyrinth, treading over jutting roots and treacherous vines, Edelgard herself wondered at her own capacity to survive in such wilderness. She no longer had a sword. How long, exactly, would she last?

“No,” she said plainly.

“Good.”

They traversed the glen in silence. Throughout their journey, Edelgard was dimly aware that her leg would constantly brush against the rōnin’s katana, its scabbard shaking with the sway of Byleth’s brisk movements. She thought to their fight the day before, the rather bewildering evening they had spent under scant moonlight, and now she was being carried. Someone had instructed this killer to bring her to them - “dead or alive.” What could that mean? What use could she be alive if she was just as useful to that person dead?

Troubling thoughts wrinkled the corner of Edelgard’s mouth. She could still taste the bitter earth from their roughhousing.

“I am your enemy,” the rōnin had said. And yet, for an enemy, she seemed casually cool and relaxed, if not aloof to Edelgard’s own simmering rage.

Perhaps for the day, Edelgard would have to lick her wounds and get better. There was always the next day.

* * *

“How much are they paying?”

Edelgard regretted the question upon asking it. She was dimly aware that she had disturbed some serene peace in the forest. Even Byleth seemed to twitch from beneath her. Somewhere, a bird crowed ominously. Its ruffled feathers echoed raucously through the din.

Byleth didn’t answer. Facing forward and out of Edelgard’s view, she wore a wan sort of smile.

“You know I’m trying to end the war, right?” Edelgard asked, feigning a nonchalant tone as she reclined away from the rōnin’s back. She made sure to shift her weight towards her hips, easing the load off of her captor in a strategic move to get on her good side. “The empire is generous to its allies,” she continued, lifting her chin to better intone her regality. “Release me, and I will reward you handsomely.”

This time, Byleth chuckled. Her shoulders trembled with the barely subdued mirth of it all.

“What’s so funny?” Edelgard was barely able to conceal the hint of irritation in her voice.

“Have you ever heard of contracts, princess?” Byleth peeked up at her charge. “They’re agreements - binding agreements, and they-...”

“I know what a contract is,” Edel interjected in a huff.

“Contracts mean everything to those who have no land and no lord to provide for them,” Byleth paused her lecture to shift Edelgard’s weight in place, letting her squeak as she grabbed hold of her thighs and cinched them around her waist. “They are the only reason you gentle lords and ladies of the court even look at us.”

There was a hiss to her final words - Edelgard could swear on it. It was a hollow, breathy ‘us’ which reminded her there was something of an unbridgeable gap between them. Even as she sat there, perched on the rōnin’s back, she felt the vertigo of that distance - the unrelenting freefall of facing someone who shunned her as wholly different.

“Besides,” she casually added, not at all letting up on the blatant ring of mockery in her voice, “there are some things money can’t buy.” Pressing forward, the smirk on her face showed no signs of diminishing.

For a while, Byleth allowed the princess to simmer in silence. As she walked, her steps fell flat with the brittle leaves that snapped in their wake. They had been walking for hours, and yet she showed no sign of stopping.

“Is it someone you love?”

Byleth froze in place. Edelgard’s words rang dissonantly against the otherwise pleasant echoes of crickets and creatures prowling about.

“What do you mean?” she asked, turning slightly.

Perhaps Edelgard misheard her, but she could have sworn she heard a slight tremor in her captor’s voice.

“You said,” she started, all too cognizant that she had stumbled upon a rather tender spot on the rōnin’s back, “‘there are some things money can’t buy.’” Her lips curled to a small yet subtle grin.

“And what does that have to do with love?”

There it was - a thinly veiled sourness to her note. Byleth was irked, and Edelgard knew her snooping had struck a chord.

“Nothing,” Edelgard’s voice piped up a little too pitchy in her defense, so she tried to relax and looked askance. “It’s nothing. I was musing on what can’t be bought with money and-”

“So you thought of love?” Byleth was puzzled, to say the least. She wasn’t sure how to follow this train of thought, or whether she should.

“-... A person you love,” Edelgard sternly corrected.

Byleth chuckled softly to herself in response. “You spend too much time in court, princess.”

“Oh?”

“Too much love poetry,” she clarified disdainfully. “Best get your head out of the clouds.”

“Are you a fan of poetry, rōnin? I didn’t realize they circulated any outside of the capital,” Edelgard remarked coyly. Her eyes were practically gleaming with piqued interest.

Again, she was met with more silence. Byleth focused on the road ahead, receding into her silent and contemplative bouts while Edelgard hung back with suspense. Although her eyes fixed on some vanishing point off to the distance, her mind wandered to the now familiar image of the rōnin chewing on her lip whenever she fell into a pensive mood.

“You seem so knowledgeable in the happenings of court,” she tried again, this time shedding whatever brazenness she intoned earlier. “Did you used to live in the capital? I-”

“Ssh,” Byleth hissed as she skidded to a grinding halt. The two swayed with disrupted momentum. “Get down,” she muttered under her breath. Edelgard instinctively obeyed, lowering her head as Byleth bent her knees and scrambled to a nearby tree.

Edelgard felt the cool touch of earth as the rōnin pressed themselves close to the hollow of the tree’s trunk. She was lowered - trusted even - to sit still by the swordsman’s back. She wasn’t quite sure what it was the other woman heard or saw, but every impulse to protest or fight back died down into a small, almost inaudible whimper. Her lilac eyes fixed on Byleth’s attentive glance. Her dark blue eyes searched through the woods as her ears intuitively perked up, like watching a hunter lie in wait for her prey.

“What is it?” Edelgard kept her whispers low, but Byleth ignored her. Her gaze was still fixed at some point in the distance.

It didn’t take long for the princess to receive her answer. The sound of leaves rustling and footsteps cracking through dried twigs and leaves filled the forest floor with a resounding clamor. There was another snap of a twig, and the sharp sound of wood cracking from pressure was enough to leave Edelgard shuddering. She subconsciously receded further into the hollow, inexplicably terrified of the unknown while Byleth remained on alert.

“You see anything?”

“Nah…”

Two men approached. They were announced by the sound of their armor clinking raucously as they walked.

“What about the other party? Do you think they’ve run into her by now?” The voice was gruff, but it carried with it an air of insolence, if not churlishness. His companion, a more reticent samurai, fixed his eyes on the ground in an attempt to read what tracks were left behind.

“No, this looks like one person’s footprints.”

“You think the princess got lost in the forest?”

“Maybe-...”

‘Princess?’ Edelgard’s eyes widened. They’re searching-... The realization set in way later, seeping all over her body even as she subconsciously rose from where she hid in the hollow. Her arms flailed upwards, her voice cracked through the forced silence of her captivity, and her sprained ankle fought hard against the searing pain as she rose. No thought came to mind - only the desperate need to call out to her would-be rescuers.

“He-!”

A violent tug wrested her arms first, and then Edelgard’s world came tumbling. She would’ve let out a noise of surprise once her back landed with a noisy thud on the ground, but the noise was quickly suppressed. Byleth’s gloved hand immediately fanned over her mouth, pressing down as she hovered above her charge and pinned her in, what seemed to Edelgard, by now an all too familiar position.

Byleth raised one finger and pressed it close to her mouth. She pursed her lips, letting out an inaudible ssssshhh.

Edelgard squealed, only to have it muffled by the gloved hand that silenced her.

“Did you hear something?”

The two men turned about wildly. The sound of a sword sliding through its sheath rang in the air.

“No,” answered the other, “must’ve been the wind…”

Edelgard could feel her own hitched breathing, sensing its warmth from the leather.

‘Let me go,’ her eyes pleaded with the rōnin. ‘Let me go, and I’ll let you live.’

“Lord Vestra said to report before noon,” one of them mumbled. “If there’s nothing, then we might as well head back.”

Edelgard wanted to scream. She opened her mouth slightly to bite back, puncturing the fabric as she struggled with all her might. Byleth, meanwhile, watched the two soldiers completely aloof to the valiant struggle the princess was putting up.

“It’s too bad,” sighed one of the soldiers. The sound of rustling leaves returned as they began to amble away from the scene. “Imagine the reward if we reached the princess first.”

“Who’s to say we won’t?”

The two broke out into a hearty guffaw at what they must have thought to be a rather good joke, to which Edelgard could only listen with the unnerved furl of her brow.

“Man am I glad that the captain approached me for the signal.”

“I’m glad you got me in on it!”

The two continued with their jolly repartee, punctuating their sentiments with more laughter.

“Can you imagine? We could’ve died!”

“Aye,” rejoined his partner, “but we’re here, and we’re going to be filthy rich.”

Edelgard froze. Blood drained from her face. ‘What am I hearing?’

“That bitch could end the war now if she and her father would just step down - let the shoguns take over.”

“Aye,” said his partner again, “but you know how these nobles are. Greedy bastards, the lot of ‘em… They don’t know what it’s like being in the front of their own petty squabbles!” Edelgard heard the man spit emphatically on the ground.

“It’s only too bad that rōnin showed up. If only we had gotten to the princess first…”

“Now’s not the time. Come on now before her damned dog Vestra barks at us.”

Again they laughed, their voices bellowing through the forest.

Byleth waited for their figures to recede into the horizon, fading like faint shadows until nothing (not even their silhouettes) were left.

The sound of their footsteps were long gone by the time Byleth lifted her hand. Her eyes, lightless as always, glanced at Edelgard with a surprising softness. “I’ll let you go now,” she whispered blithely. Slowly, she lifted herself off the princess, careful to avoid the still-wounded side of her torso as she squirmed off the ground.

“It seems,” she started up again as she rose to her feet, “I’m not your only enemy.”

Edelgard kept still in the groove. Her hands and legs were unmoving.

“It seems,” she repeated, “treacherous wolves fill the royal army’s ranks.”

This time, it was Edelgard’s turn to be silent. Her mouth felt dry - chalky even. There was a pinch in her throat that belied a sharp and uncomfortable thirst. Even her stomach felt light with hunger, but - airy as her body felt - she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to move.

“Get up princess,” Byleth commanded tersely. “If we dwell here any longer, next we will be visited by actual wolves.”

“You never answered my question,” Edelgard piped up, indifferent to her captor’s prior words. “I asked if you were selling me,” and she paused to place emphasis on the word, swallowing an uncomfortable wad of air stuck in her throat, “... if you were doing it for someone you love?”

“Last I checked,” the rōnin sternly replied, “I didn’t have to answer any of your questions.”

Edelgard found this answer interesting, to say the least. She nibbled her lower lip, miming the pensive habit she had lately seen from Byleth.

“I’m doing it for someone I love,” Edelgard said out of the blue. The grass started to feel warm on her back, but it didn’t matter. She was exhausted, and she wanted to rest.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” There was a bite to her answer, and Edelgard had more than enough reason to be a little short. “This war hurts me, just as much as it hurts my people. I was on a mission to end it - to pave the way for a brighter dawn-...”

Byleth scoffed. “Save me from your political philosophy, princess,” she cut in. “I’m not paid to listen to you daydream.”

“And yet, you didn’t seem to mind listening to me talk of love.”

The rebuttal cut where Edelgard meant it to. Byleth stared at her with that stony, tightlipped silence she gave whenever she was stumped.

“I don’t blame you,” Edelgard continued, her voice becoming lilting now that she was sure she had seized Byleth’s attention. “I would do anything for the one I love.”

“Is that so?” Byleth made her way back towards the princess, squatting next to her by way of gestural warning that she was about to lift her up. “And who is this person? The one you’d sacrifice anything for?”

“I love my country,” the princess explained, moving her eyes so they fixed on Byleth with a piercing focus. But Byleth did not return the gravity of her answer. Instead, she laughed - as heartily as the two men they had barely eluded.

“I would do anything to save my country from this war.”

Byleth’s laughter tapered off into small tremors in her shoulders. She scratched at her eyes in an exaggerated show of her amusement. “Such as?”

For the first time in what seemed like a while, Edelgard laughed too - one that was subdued and mirthless compared to Byleth’s. Yet, light as it was, her chortle pulled at and seared the tender wounds from yesterday’s kerfuffle. Her mind raced back to what her life was like the day before - her sole purpose was to meet with Emissary and broker a deal. Now it seemed like some farfetched hope.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“The truth is princess…” Byleth heaved and lifted Edelgard off the ground, carrying her up with arms beneath her waist and her legs so their faces were mere inches apart. “It doesn’t matter what you think or what you are willing to do.”

Edelgard flinched, not from the caustic words but from the warm press of Byleth’s breaths being so close to hers. She didn’t like being so close to another’s gaze - to be so near such piercing scrutiny.

“Until you’ve made that sacrifice,” Byleth continued, “you don’t know what it is to do something for love. The bottom line is... those men are sacrificing for a cause as important as yours. Survival is not any less noble than this 'love' you speak of.”

Byleth was satisfied with this lecture. Truth be told, she didn't know what put her in this generous mood, or why she deigned to educate a princess she would soon be free of on the matters that troubled the common folk. That the princess was quiet was telling. Had she finally accepted the hard reality of their world?

“And you do?”

“I do what?” Byleth was beginning to sound annoyed. She didn’t mean for this debate to last longer than it did.

“You know what it is to sacrifice for the one you love?”

Edelgard wasn’t surprised when, upon answering her question, Byleth turned away and met her once more with silence.

There was less resistance when Byleth maneuvered Edelgard onto her back, letting her perch with legs wrapped around her waist for good measure. The rōnin once more resumed her trek, careful (Edelgard noticed) to go a different direction than the two soldiers they encountered.

“Save your breath,” Byleth spoke up after they had walked several paces down the less beaten path, “when night falls, wolves will be on the hunt.”

“Are you scared of wolves?” Edelgard asked, not at all unwilling to partake in some lighthearted teasing.

“Aren’t you?”

To that, the two women laughed. It was a soft, lilting laughter, but one they shared. It surprised Byleth, to say the least, but she chose to say nothing of it. The princess’s prying had gotten dangerously close, and she wasn’t about to risk more of these lighthearted conversations.

Meanwhile, Edelgard was content to sit in silence, letting the rōnin carry her as she mulled over more plans to escape. She would need a sword - that much was certain. Besides the rōnin, other enemies prowled about. Wolves were the least of her worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I meant to have a 3rd scene with Hubert here, but this chapter got *so* long. I figured it would be better if I just moved it to the front of the next chapter. Thank you so much for those who have liked, shared, and reviewed this fic!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: graphic depiction of violence at the end of this chapter
> 
> \- 
> 
> Art is a gift from the amazing artist on twitter @/enzymelink 
> 
> Please give them a follow!

Hubert ran a tired hand through his hair. A frown tugged on his lips when he realized how knotty it had gotten. Dirty. Unkempt. It had only been days since the ambush, and already he had become a sleepless, sweaty mess. If Lady Edelgard returned, it would not do to have her see him in such dire straits. _‘No,’_ he thought with the shake of his head, ‘ _that would not do.’_

With a sigh, he lurched forward in his seat and stubbornly combed his fingers through the thick of it.

“Lord Vestra!”

A vassal abruptly cut through his thoughts and entered the tent.

“What is it?” Hubert awkwardly cleared his throat. Facing the vassal from where he sat, Hubert straightened his posture and shuffled some parchment around. Whatever the situation, he made sure to _look_ the part of the princess’s retainer, regardless of whether or not he _felt_ like one.

His subordinate gave a curt bow and promptly stood attention.

“My lord,” he began, “two scouts searching the southern part of the forest have sent word.”

“And?”

There was a slight pause - a moment of hesitation whereby the vassal swallowed back his nerves and revealed (without saying much at all) the bad news. “They have not found the princess, but they believe they've found footprints, sir. They believe, given her present state, that she isn’t far.”

“And the rōnin?” Hubert pitched his elbows on the desk and webbed his fingers together. “Any sign of her?”

The vassal shook his head. “No, my lord. According to the message, the princess appears to be alone.”

Hubert hummed audibly to himself, glancing down at his unread documents as he mulled over the recent news. “And our pursuers?”

“Still a day behind, sir,” he answered.

“Very good. Report back as soon as you receive more word from the scouts.” The retainer nodded and leaned against his chair. He immediately turned his attention back to the letters and maps set before him - busy work that, miraculously, always found its way to the bureaucrats caught in the battlefield. Well, regardless of why they were there, he found busy work better than none at all. “You may go.”

“Sir,” the soldier saluted. He bowed before promptly leaving the tent.

With the vassal gone, another heavy sigh rolled through Hubert’s shoulders, dropping with the weariness he tried so hard to mask in front of the others. They were two days away from the capital now, and before long the enemy’s army would give up their chase. Yet the princess remained unfound, and worse, she was in the thick of an infamous forest riddled with both actual and fictional dangers.

Irked, Hubert pinched the bridge of his nose. For the past day, he had overheard the men spread wives’ tales about it - how the princess was a lost cause; how no one ever returned from the forest alive. Gossiping was a serious infraction all on its own. But to so loudly proclaim the princess as a “lost cause?” A low thrum began to throb on the retainer’s temples, signaling the palpable pressures of his usual headaches.

For once in his life, Hubert welcomed the paperwork before him. Picking up his brush, he delicately dipped it in ink before tugging back his sleeve.

“Hubert? I heard there was news of Edelgard?”

Ferdinand pushed through the tent’s flaps with little ceremony. It was uncharacteristic of him, to say the least, but his voice brimmed with an earnestness too difficult to ignore.

“ _Lady_ Edelgard,” Hubert corrected him. It was like a reflex by that point. He didn’t even look up from his calligraphy when he asked, “What do you want?” The surly frown on his face was hard to ignore.

Ferdinand cocked a brow at his old friend’s rather brusque manner. “I asked if there was news of _Lady_ Edelgard.” He made sure to honor her title this time, more for Hubert’s sake than his. The prime minister’s son was in no mood for an argument, especially after the one they had in the previous evening. “Well? Have they found her?”

Hubert stopped writing. He indelicately dropped his pen to the side of the parchment. “No, Ferdinand, my scouts have not found her majesty.” He leaned back once more on his seat, crossing his arms to show, in the most blatant way possible, his impatience with the conversation. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have matters to attend to...”

“Hubert!” There was a shuffling of papers; the raucous clamor of flimsy furniture as Ferdinand rushed before Hubert, slamming fists down on the table. “ _Don’t_ leave me out of this. I want to help!”

The retainer gave a disbelieving smirk. “ _You_? Help? I’m sorry, but given the present circumstances I’m afraid I simply _can’t_ trust you with sensitive information.”

“Whatever you think I’ve done,” Ferdinand argued back, his features contorted from the blow of his friend’s words, “I swear to you-”

“Swearing means nothing!” Hubert rose from his seat, leaning forward as his eyes leveled with Ferdinand. “The fact of the matter is, two days ago we were ambushed. _You_ were nowhere to be found. How could I _possibly_ trust any of the filth that comes pouring from your mouth?!”

The tent was cramped and small, but to Ferdinand, Hubert’s voice resounded with thunderous strength within its walls. He stepped back. For once in his life he felt dread against Hubert’s gaze - cold and piercing as his nostrils flared with anger. “Hubert,” he spoke, his voice low and shaky, “you know I did not ask to be part of the convoy. My father-”

“So your father is the traitor then,” Hubert interrupted. “Perhaps, if we all make it back alive, we can begin an investigation and look further into the matter!” He threw his head back and feigned mirthless laughter.

“Hubert,” Ferdinand tried again, “I know you’re scared. The princess is missing, and the enemy is upon us, but we can’t start making baseless accusations.”

“Oh I don’t know about you, but these accusations don’t seem all that baseless to _me_ ,” Hubert retorted.

“Come to your senses!” Ferdinand looked at him with pleading eyes. “This isn’t you! The Hubert I know - the Hubert _Edelgard_ knows - would keep a cool head, no matter what!”

The whole tent seemed to darken with the weight of Ferdinand’s voice. On the desk, candlelight flickered with the strained breathing of both men.

A few moments passed, and soon the two backed down with how stiflingly tense the air had become. Hubert could only shake his head and plop back down to his seat. The chair rattled from his weight, but he didn’t care. His limbs were drooping from exhaustion, and all he could do was run yet another tired hand through his still-uncouth hair. “Leave me Ferdinand.”

Ferdinand’s fists clenched tightly by his side. In the dim lighting of the tent, he could see the wrinkles and crow’s feet that riddled his friend’s face. He saw the bags under his eyes and the blemishes sprung from days going unwashed. Hubert was not like this. Hubert was _never_ like this.

“Let me find her,” he said, circling the table until he knelt before Hubert’s chair. Hubert, for his part, nearly started back from the drastic shfit in Ferdinand’s favor.

“What are you-!”

“You lead the army back to the capital,” Ferdinand interjected. His hand fell on Hubert’s, who masked his surprise as quickly as it came. “I’ll take a team of scouts with me-”

“ _You_? Find her?” Hubert pulled his hand away. “Even if I didn’t suspect you as a traitor, I couldn’t trust such a delicate mission to your incompetence.” There was a hiss to the scathing remark - one that made the other man draw back with a slight quiver in his breath.

Ferdinand opened his mouth, only to close it with words as they stopped up his throat. Normally, he was one to argue and to push through, eager for ready solutions in contrast to his more pensive friend. Yet something in Hubert’s countenance belied a seething hostility. Hubert was elsewhere now - far from the reaches of the reality that so desperately required immediate action.

“Fine,” Ferdinand started again, this time his mouth was pulled taut with bitter resolve. “If you don’t trust me to save Edelgard, then trust yourself.”

Hubert scoffed, chuckling at such a puzzling proposition. “What could you possibly mean?”

“You said it yourself,” he said, eyes fixed on Hubert, “an incompetent person cannot be trusted with the princess’s safety.”

“Ferdinand are you-?”

But he was not going to brook any further interruptions from the retainer. Ferdinand rose from where he knelt, performing gravitas when he scarcely could hide the trembling in his hands. “ _You_ are the most competent person I know, Hubert.” His voice was practically a low murmur, but his words were stern. “Go find her. I’ll lead the army back to the capital.”

The chair skidded against the ground as Hubert rose, pushing it back in his frenzy. “And leave our men in your treacherous hands?!”

“Hubert, as far as we know, _anyone_ can be the traitor!”

The tent flapped noisily as a gale blustered through. It filled the silence of their impasse, unwilling as they were to move on from the yelling match.

“Let me lead them back,” Ferdinand tried again, his features softening to a pitiful furl of his brow. “I will submit to whatever investigation you wish to conduct. Just let me do _this_.”

“And you expect me to take your word for it?” Hubert didn’t bother hiding his skepticism. He crossed his arms, as was his habit, and gave a wry sort of smile as he mulled over Ferdinand’s offer. “How do I know you won’t use the remainder of our forces to stage a coup?!”

“What would you have me _do_?!” Ferdinand cried out. His voice rang in a hollow echo throughout the small confines of the tent. When the loud echo of his words finally subsided, he took the opportunity to straighten himself. Shifting weight from one leg to another, he strained to maintain the veneer of composure his father had always taught him to have.

“Edelgard is my friend too,” he said in a low whisper. “She is not just a princess to me. She is a companion and a close friend - a rival I have based my entire existence on…” He paused. He felt a knot in his throat, and at that moment he had to stifle a hoarse and uncomfortable cough that fought against the words he tried so hard to speak. “I would be lost without her.”

For once in his life, Hubert listened to Ferdinand. He listened with a grim curl of his lip - the closest thing to a frown he was willing to show by way of camaraderie. He watched as Ferdinand held his gaze, baring his soul while refusing to let his lip tremble with the anger that he refused to show.

Anger.

 _‘That’s right,’_ Hubert thought to himself. While the retainer grew up as Edelgard’s humble servant, Ferdinand had grown up as her self-proclaimed rival. Yet that rivalry was a mask, it seemed, for the impertinent fool stood before him with eyes practically _glistening_ with tears. Ferdinand was loyal - that much was certain. With the realization setting in, he lowered his head, concealing what would have been a smile of relief. He had never seen Ferdinand so angry, or perhaps more accurately, he had never seen him so _hurt_.

“If I go…” he picked up where they left off and cleared his throat just as one clears away whatever awkwardness had wedged itself between them. “Have the men set up camp _outside_ the city walls.” Hubert then moved away from the desk, leaving a stunned Ferdinand behind as he immediately rummaged through his things for packing. “I will send a bird to the capital and apprise the Emperor himself of the situation.”

Hubert had put it delicately for his sake. That much was certain, but Ferdinand was not _so_ daft that he couldn’t read between the lines. He watched as Hubert busied himself, gulping audibly as he tried - to the best of his ability - to _not_ reel from the success of his pleas.

At first, Ferdinand said nothing. It was a silence that unnerved Hubert, especially when the other man was normally so… _talkative_.

“I’ll be faster on my own, and it will be easier to elude the enemy’s spying eyes-…”

A touch cut him off. A gentle one. Ferdinand had ambled up behind him, laying a firm yet nevertheless palm on his shoulder. “Hubert,” he said solemnly, “promise me you’ll return?”

Hubert didn't face him. He couldn't. Questions were riddled all over his face. _'What's the meaning of this?!'_ He cleared his throat from the discomfort of it all before shoving away his hand with a brusque shrug.

A smirk crept up on Hubert’s face. He craned his neck, turning to look at Ferdinand - a man _he_ always considered to be his rival. “Do you honestly think I set out to fail? No, I will return with Lady Edelgard.”

“ _Hubert_ ,” Ferdinand insisted, “I mean it.” He couldn’t help but let up, giving a wan smile as he tried and failed to say goodbye.

The retainer returned neither the smile nor the gesture. Instead, he sighed and let his eyes fall on a sword that, four days prior, he didn’t think he had any reason to use. "Get our men home and safe, Ferdinand."

The young nobleman smiled. “You have my word.”

* * *

Edelgard dreamed of a door.

Two shoji screens were floating in water.

No, _she_ was under water. Her hair was dark like hazel, and her kimono sleeves floated like silk all around her.

She wanted nothing more than to reach that door.

“El,” a boy called out to her, “come here El.”

So she followed.

But she couldn’t breathe.

Bubbles formed when her mouth opened. They flowed and poured forth as all the air shriveled up in her lungs, and the hollow sound of a void enveloped her ears.

_‘But wait… music?’_

It was a woman's voice - gruff and untuned, but nevertheless pleasant. She was singing a lullaby, but it was muffled. She wanted to search the walls that encroached, to check if the woman who was singing was just outside.

But she fell.

She fell so many depths, spiraling downward.

Before she knew it, she opened her eyes where she was strapped to a table. The sound of chains rattled in the dark. Ruby eyes watched as she let their hands reach out to her, their fingers like knives as they cut through her skin.

_‘No…’_

“El,” the boy called again, “close your eyes.”

She closed her eyes, and she saw a knife - small yet clean in its lightless shimmer - fall upon her chest.

‘ _No!'_

* * *

Edelgard woke to the sound of crickets. Once the numbness of sleep wore off, the stinging pain of having risen so suddenly began to make itself felt. She hissed under her breath and struggled to move her still-bound hands. She wanted to check the seeping warmth on her side.

“Bad dream?”

Byleth sat unfazed by a tree stump. A low fire smoldered in front of her, eating away at the kindling as it spat out embers.

“No,” Edelgard lied. She turned from where she lay on the ground, unwilling to reveal just how pale and cold the nightmare left her.

What time was it? How late was it? The crescent moon was barely there, and soon it would wane into nothing. Edelgard clenched her hand close to her chest. She was curled into the fetal position - the only way to keep warm considering how small their fire was. It was for the wolves, or so Byleth told her. She kept it low enough so the smoke wasn’t too visible against the bulwark of trees surrounding them, but it was bright enough to ward off those whatever prowled about at night.

“You haven’t slept,” Edelgard started up, somewhat unsettled by her captor’s unresponsiveness.

There was a time when she longed for quiet from those around her. Court was always bustling with flatterers and obnoxiously loud noblemen, but Byleth was different. Despite facing away, she could picture her - expressionless as she stared emptily into the fire. The rōnin “slept” (if that was the word for it) by sitting upright, her torso leaning against her sword like the samurai of old.

“I don’t really sleep,” Byleth answered. The monotone of her voice rang dissonantly against the gentle thrumming of crickets.

Edelgard lifted herself with her elbow. She half sat up, turning her head to scoff, “That’s impossible. All humans need sleep!”

“Then I guess I’m not human.”

 _Was that a jest?_ Edelgard’s jaw hung in disbelief. The deadpan delivery of it all gave her more reason to pause. Starting and stopping within the span of a second, she nibbled on her lower lip out of habit before finally uttering, “Surely you’re joking.”

Byleth shrugged.

 _Vague_ , thought Edelgard, who was growing more irritated with this riddling character by the second.

A few seconds of silence passed before Byleth thought to tend to the fire. It licked at the dried twigs, spitting and crackling as more embers glowed through the dark glen. Edelgard knew better than to disturb these quiet, pensive bouts. There were times through their travels when the rōnin would recede and simply _stop_ existing, her face blank and vacuous. She tried to break free hours before when her captor sank into another one of those bouts, but it was to no avail. She caught her just the same.

_‘What a strange woman…’_

Edelgard yawned through her sigh, pretending to be more tired than she was. She pinched her eyes shut, but doing so only brought back faint images and chilling sensations: memories of a nameless boy calling to her, his head bright with golden hair; the wraithlike figures who hovered above her and clawed at her heart… She shifted her position and rustled some grass through her restlessness.

“ _Hmmm, hmm, hm…_ ” Byleth’s low and quiet voice was nothing more than a murmur against the evening breeze, but it was clear and soft.

Edelgard spun around on her makeshift bed, looking up at the rōnin in muted astonishment.

She continued on with her song, unbothered by her spontaneous audience. She was humming a melody which was _strangely_ familiar to the princess.

“That song…” Edelgard blurted out.

Byleth stopped tending to the flames, and with it her song ended.

For a second, the princess’s heart squeezed with regret. She didn’t realize how badly she wanted to hear more of it.

“What of it?” Byleth asked, matter-of-fact in her tone.

“I’ve heard it before,” she answered curtly. “Sing more of it.”

Surprisingly, Byleth did as she was told. She raised her stick and beat about the kindling as she resumed her tune.

‘Ethereal’ was one word for it. Byleth was no singer. Her voice was pitchy and her lungs short of breath, but the soft murmur of her humming was tantalizing all on its own. Edelgard listened on, drinking in the low thrumming of the lullaby (how did she know it was a lullaby?). After a few phrases, Byleth’s humming grew into a fully voiced tune - meaningless sounds that she sang wistfully into the spring air.

Edelgard perched her chin on her arms, folded atop one another as she looked on. She didn’t notice when, exactly, she lied down flat on her stomach. Neither did she notice that she was completely mesmerized. It wasn’t for the beauty of Byleth’s voice (indeed she had heard better court singers), but it was nevertheless haunting. Something in the melody sounded strangely reminiscent, like bits and pieces of a long-forgotten dream.

Soon, the song ended. Byleth let the note drone until it faded with the last flickers of the now-dying fire. Despite the encroaching darkness, Edelgard stared into her face. She saw something sorrowful in the outlines of her features that she had never seen before.

“You sound so sad…”

Byleth jumped at the sound of the princess’s voice. She had almost forgotten her presence in the midst of her trance. “Sad?” she snapped breathlessly.

Edelgard too caught herself off guard. She didn’t realize that she had voiced what should have been silent thoughts. “Y-yes!” she answered, more flustered than intended, “like you’re waiting for something, or-... someone?”

Byleth stared at her, dumbfounded. They could hardly see in the dark, and the fire was close to cindered, but she noticed how brightly Edelgard’s eyes shone beneath the scant moonlight. More than that, her hair even _glowed_ beneath it, luminous like the silver moon that watched over them. She didn’t know why she never questioned such unusual colors before.

“You’re mistaken,” she replied after a while. Byleth tacked on a low, if not stilted chuckle. “This song isn’t about that.”

“Then what is it about?” Edelgard half rose from her pile of leaves. Faint rustling could be heard in the dark.

Her earnestness was unexpected, if not mildly off-putting. Byleth leaned back on her tree stump, resting her temple against the hilt of her sword as she mulled over her answer. “It’s about a place...” Her voice was soft, almost low like a whisper, “a _star_.”

Edelgard leered at her. “Well which is it? A place or a star?”

“Princess!” Byleth exaggerated her surprise, “do you not know? A star _is_ a place.”

This time, her royal highness broke out into full-blown laughter. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not.”

The two laughed together. Edelgard found the idea of stars being _places_ incredulous, but Byleth thought it was more incredulous that such a high-ranking noble could be so ignorant of science.

“And who told you that?” she asked, coy and teasing in her tone. She raised her arms so her palms cradled her head. Her legs, meanwhile, kicked back playfully as she remained flat on her stomach.

“My mother,” Byleth responded.

Edelgard was ready to laugh, but the terse and melancholic tone stopped her. Even in the dark, she saw Byleth avert her gaze, looking off into the distance as the echo of her voice lilted into silence.

“She used to tell me,” she continued, encouraged by the princess’s unusually chatty mood, “that the song was about her people.” She paused to shift her position. The grass rustled with Byleth’s noisy motions as she raised a knee, her hakama dragging along more dirt.

“Her people?” Edelgard looked at her quizzically.

“I was never sure what she meant, but before she died, she would spend her nights gazing at stars… singing the song I hummed for you.”

Edelgard followed Byleth’s line of sight, which rose to the brightest star of them all. She recognized it from her astronomy lessons, only two facts of which she could recall. _‘Sirius_ ’ was its name, and it shined brightest in the winter and spring.

A howl cut through their stargazing reverie. The two women sat up, scanning the darkened horizon for the source.

Another howl, this time low and droning reverberated through the forest. A wolf’s howl.

A flurry of birds snapped through some distant trees. Branches and leaves rustled raucously as another howl moaned through the night. Several wolves - a whole pack of them perhaps - were closing in.

“Get up,” Byleth commanded. She didn’t wait for Edelgard to obey when she immediately flung her off the ground and onto her back, ready to carry her off. “ _Shit_ ,” she muttered under her breath, “I shouldn’t have let the fire die out.”

The impact of it all stung. Edelgard winced as she felt heat spear through her side. She could tell through the fabric of her clothes that something warm and wet burned on her skin.

“Princess,” Byleth gritted out when she broke into a sprint, “I’m going to fight them off.” The two dashed through trees. Branches rattled as the rōnin whipped past them.

“By yourself?!” Edelgard wrapped her arms snugly around Byleth’s neck. She wasn’t afraid, per se, but she wasn’t confident either. Her captor might have been a master swordsman, but not even a master swordsman could best beasts of nature. Wolves of the forest were famed for their voracity, and their strength was rumored to be vastly superior to humans.

Byleth must have been running at the speed of light. The wind whistled past their ears as thorns and thickets scratched at their faces.

“When I give the signal,” Byleth called out over the noise, “you run, alright? Run and don’t look back!”

“What are you-!”

Byleth skidded to a halt on the earthen ground. A cloud of dirt gritted against her sandals as she circled back, facing a fierce pack of blood red eyes as they emerged from the shadows. Another howl pierced the din of the forest, and some even barked as they crept closer. Edelgard knew then that they were now surrounded.

“RUN!”

Byleth heaved before throwing her off. Edelgard landed with a grunt as her back fell flush on the ground.

The wolves snarled and pounced into the skirmish. A bright light shone silver through the pitch black of their surroundings. Edelgard gaped at the sword in Byleth’s hands, which seemed to glow as it fended off the large fangs of a wolf. The creature's silhouette was easily twice the rōnin’s size.

“What are you doing?!” Byleth yelled through gritted teeth. Her jaw clenched as she strained against the beast. “I said RUN!”

Her foot skidded as she lost the impasse. Another wolf shot through the dark, and Byleth yelped out in pain as their fangs pierced her shoulder.

“Byleth!” Edelgard cried out.

Something was wrong.

Her legs were wobbly. Her knees were shaking. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t feel anything - nothing but the cold sweat that beaded down her neck.

Another wolf stalked closer. The princess could see its fangs bared with the drool of its hunger.

“Byleth!” she called out again. She fought against the pain that speared through her sides. She fought against the sprain of her ankle. All the pain seemed nothing as she rose. “STOP! BYLETH!” She was babbling now, but what for? Why was she calling out to her captor? Where was she running?

Edelgard’s eyes were brimming with tears - too bleary and full for her to see _anything_.

But it didn't matter.

None of that mattered.

Edelgard rose. Her legs moved when her mind couldn’t. The princess ran to where she thought she last saw the rōnin, who fell with a blood-curdling cry as yet another wolf pounced on her.

Another howl cut through. The last of the pack emerged from the shadows and faced Edelgard head on. It stared her down, red eyes drunk with bloodlust.

“Leave her alone!” she screamed. She desperately rummaged through the grass and dirt in search for a stick, a stone - _anything_ to fight the beasts off.

Yet the creature was deaf to her pleas. It snarled as it made a dash, jumping with the wind as it sank its claws into her flesh.

A red glow pierced through the darkness. It was blinding at first, but it eventually settled for a luminous bluish hue. The light swirled into a symbol, like writing inked onto the air. Edelgard had seen that symbol before. Her lips parted, breathless against the light that bathed the den.

_What...?_

A wolf let out a death rattle as it whimpered. Edelgard smelled the blood first. It didn't take long until she caught sight of the outlines of a sword piercing through the creature.

Something of a gust cut against Edelgard’s cheek, and soon the wolf that was on top of her soundlessly dropped. Its body lay limp in a pool of its own blood.

Edelgard’s lilac eyes fixed on Byleth’s katana. Despite seeing so much violence, the blade was pristine. No, in fact… It was still _glowing._ Steam rose from its blade in reddish swirls as the rōnin rose from the ground and looked squarely at her.

_By...leth?_

She wanted to call out her name once more, but her voice seemed stuck in her throat.

_Byleth?_

Edelgard’s eyes felt heavy. She blinked once, and then twice before she saw the outlines of Byleth’s figure hovering above her.

“I’m here, princess,” she heard her voice. It was like a murmur close to her ear.

Edelgard didn’t realize that the wolf had injured her or that she had lost a lot of blood in reopening her wound. By the time reality set in, she was much too weak. Muffled voices called out, but all of it faded with the high-pitched thrumming that pulsed in her temples.

"Princess!" Byleth grunted out. Her ungloved hand wrapped around Edelgard's.

She didn't even notice that she had clenched them together, shaking violently with the terror still fresh in her eyes. 

"Everything's okay!" the rōnin insisted. 

Somehow, the two of them were close to a tree. _Edelgard_ was backed up against a tree. Her shoulders were trembling. She could barely contain herself when she felt Byleth's fingers graze against the line of her jaw, tilting her chin upward so their gaze was level. "They're gone. They won't hurt you anymore!"

"You're a crest-bearer," Edelgard blurted out in her shock.

Byleth's dark blue eyes widened at hearing her words.

Edelgard let the tears that welled in her eyes fall. She looked at Byleth, gulping audibly before she spoke.

"You bear the crest of flames."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay! I got busy with other stuff, and I was kind of worried my story sucked or something lol. But I'm glad a friend (she knows who :P) pushed me to update sooner than expected. Thank you all for reading <3
> 
> Would you like to get an alert or email every time I post updates to this fic? Please feel free to hit the subscribe button this fic! That way, you get a notification anytime I post a new chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I deliberately waited until the wave of fics from Edelgard's birthday were done. So without further ado, here's the newest chapter!
> 
> It's long I know, but please bear with me. A lot of plot unfolds, and I think the whole of it works as a singular chapter. Thank you again to people who left kudos, reviews, and shared this fic with others. Writing for you all has been my pleasure!

It stung Edelgard’s left side to wring the fabric so tightly. She dipped it once into the cool river bank, lifted it, and squeezed. Thin red strokes washed away from the rag as she held it underwater, giving the illusion that it was otherwise clean.

_“You’re a crest-bearer.”_

Droplets beaded down Byleth’s bloodied shoulder each time Edelgard patted it down. The water wove around thick and tender gashes, rinsing away the dirt and grime that drifted into the wound.

_“You bear the crest of flames.”_

Sitting by the river bank with an upraised knee, Byleth looked on stoically. At times, her lip would curl against the damp cloth. It was the closest thing she would show to feeling pain.

Sitting across from her, Edelgard sighed through the task with tightlipped concern. The morning had been tense, but she tried to content herself with the busy work ahead of her. Her wrists were still bruised from the bindings, and her whole body was sore from other still-healing injuries. There was much left unsaid between them, and neither was willing to give in.

“Your wound,” Edelgard commented, seemingly out of the blue, "it looks almost healed."

Byleth shrugged with her good shoulder.

The truth was: it shouldn’t have, and it didn’t. The wound was much deeper just hours before, when the crescent moon still hung high over their heads and the wolf carcasses piled like a hill in the forest glen. Yet within a few hours, the bites looked nothing more than mangled flesh - mere scratches compared to the violence the princess had witnessed when they were at death’s door.

 _“We have to go,”_ was all Byleth said in answer the night before. At the rōnin’s behest, they kept on traveling. It didn’t matter that Edelgard protested, or that Byleth limped away without reply. Edelgard had fainted the moment she took her first two steps. From exhaustion? Shock? Blood loss? By sunrise she woke to more questions and even fewer answers.

They were already at the northern end of the forest, bordering the same river that had washed them away days prior. For her part, Edelgard still felt weak, saddled as she was with an unshakeable grogginess, but she bit back her fatigue in an effort to focus. If her memory served, they were now a day away from the Emissary’s castle.

“So,” Edelgard tried again, “are you going to sit there in silence?”

Byleth sucked through gritted teeth as the princess pressed the rag firmly against her injury. “What are you trying to do?! Reopen it?!” The surly ronin leaned back and reflexively cradled her bad arm. Her lips pursed to an ample pout. Strangely enough, Edelgard thought she almost resembled a cat.

“Please,” Edelgard sighed out, rolling her eyes, “you know just as well as I do that your wound was much worse last night. It’s almost _healed_!”

“So what if it is?!” Byleth fired back.

“It’s not natural!”

The surrounding forest rang with the unexpected outburst. Edelgard nearly shrank from the sound of it. A flock of birds shot out of a thicket, their wings causing a racket as they rustled out and soared above the otherwise calm waters.

“Might I remind you, princess,” the ronin continued as she snatched the rag from Edelgard, “you’re free to go.”

Edelgard stared back at her. Her eyes widened from the slow fall of surprise. “What-”

“Well, technically you’re _not_ ,” she tacked on, playfully leaning back on one arm as she wistfully looked off to the side. “If you try, I will do my best to stop you, but - and I don’t know if you’ve noticed - I’ve cut off your bindings, and I’m terribly injured. So if you want to try and run,” she paused to wave at the air with her other hand, “now’s your chance.”

There was a bitterness to Byleth’s tone, one that didn’t escape Edelgard’s notice. The princess pouted once more. Her lips pulled taut as she mulled over what her captor just said. “What is this?” This time her voice was steady and stern. “What are you trying to do?”

Byleth threw her head back and laughed. “You woke up and didn’t even ask me why your hands were untied.” She carried on as if she was holding a conversation with herself. Edelgard opened her mouth to interject, but the rōnin merely shook her head and chuckled. Her laughter, however, was subdued. One fit of giggling was enough to make her body tremble with another bout of pain. “Why haven’t you tried to escape?”

Byleth leered at her, callously mindful of the princess’s own inner turmoil. The mischievous gleam in her eye was hard to miss. “Why didn’t _you_ run?”

The non-answer was… _something._ The meaning of it was palpable yet not quite within her grasp. Edelgard had enough of these… rather irksome ambiguities. Her hands, freed of the rag that now lay damp by the river, twitched on her lap, and the smug grin on Byleth’s face only made her mouth twist with anger.

“You have the power to take on a pack of wolves on your own,” Edelgard said. Her words were clipped, brimming with unladylike impatience. “You have the power,” she continued, pausing only to swallow an uncomfortable wad in her throat, “ to defeat me in battle. And yet you _chose_ to put me out of harm’s way.”

“ _I_ didn’t choose anything,” Byleth rebutted. “I did what I thought was right.”

“Right?” the princess parroted back. She cocked a disbelieving brow and forced out a mild-mannered laugh. “Do you think I’m a fool? That I don’t know where we are?”

 _Tsk_ , the ronin wilfully snapped and averted her gaze. A scowl roughened her otherwise calm exterior.

“Why risk your life to save me _just_ so you could hand me over to my enemies?!” Edelgard’s mouth furled churlishly when Byleth turned further away, rebuffing her questions with nothing but a telling silence. “‘Dead or alive,’ were your words, weren’t they? Yet you’ve done _everything_ to keep me alive, including using a crest that no one in the world knows about-!”

“-So what if I acted on a whim and saved you?” Byleth snapped back. She shot up from where she sat, towering over the princess with her fists balling up against her sides. “It doesn’t mean anything. _None_ of it means anything.”

Edelgard was startled. It was the first time she saw the woman’s lip quiver with barely checked anger. “No, you’re wrong!” she balked. “You’re wrong, because-”

But Byleth wouldn’t hear of it. She immediately whipped away and stormed off. There was a temperamental huff to her gait - a sulky unwillingness to broach the matter any further.

“Byleth!” Edelgard called out, somewhat irked that a grown woman was still capable of tantrums. She struggled to rise as quickly, and her limp wasn’t doing her any favors. “Don’t you dare walk away from me!”

“Typical court noble,” Byleth sighed and rolled her unimpressed eyes, “you _really_ think you can order everyone around.”

She was being glib, and it worked. For a moment, Edelgard _wished_ she would quit _harping_ on the fruitless topic of their stations.

“A part of you _knows_ what you’re doing is wrong!” Edelgard spoke in softer yet nevertheless determined tones. “A part of you _wants_ me to live. Why else would you activate your crest when you did?!”

There was an indignant plea in her voice. Byleth heard it - a faintly audible cry in the tenor of the princess’s otherwise furious interrogation.

She paused, for the moment, and looked at her expectantly. “What do _you_ know about ‘activating’ crests?” If she wasn’t annoyed before, Byleth was definitely annoyed _now_. Her temples throbbed with the low thrum of a migraine, and the princess’s pitchy complaints were grating on her patience. “You seem to know a lot about crests,” she continued in a steadier tone. “I thought humans didn’t know about them.”

 _‘Humans?’_ Edelgard’s knitted brows belied her confusion. The choice of words was strange, to say the least. “No,” she said, her voice drawing out her response, “most don’t. But-...”

“So princess,” she interrupted, “I ask again: what do _you_ know about crests?”

It was a simple question: pointed and otherwise innocent. But things never _were_ that simple - at least not for Edelgard. What she did and didn’t know could be summarized with nothing but faint memories: the rattling of chains, a shadowy descent beneath the castle, and a boy waiting by bloodied shoji screens…

“Nothing,” she answered calmly. Her features were smoothed over into an impenetrable mask. “Nothing other than they’re dangerous ancient technology.” Still, even Edelgard had her limits. Her shoulders sagged with the unchecked flood of memories. Her voice tapered lower when her eyes fell to the ground. “My father once said that crests were myths - weapons of the gods of old.”

Byleth chuckled at such a thorough explanation. “Is that what I am to you? A god of old?” Her palm rested on the hilt of her sword as she turned. “I hate to break it to you, princess, but gods don’t exist.”

“No you’re not a god.” Edelgard fixed a pointed look at the rōnin, scanning her whole figure as she steadied the trembling in her bones. “You’re a master samurai with more power than you’ll ever know, and you _squander_ it by playing mercenary.”

Byleth scoffed. “Unbelievable!” she muttered, balked by the princess’s uninterrupted preachiness. She strolled back to where they had made camp, completing the circle in her effort to avoid her stubborn pursuer. But such circling fits of rage always led to dead ends. Now there was nothing but the river before her. Its gentle current seemed to laugh; to shrink the scale of their bickering down to mere noise against the ceaseless flow of its waters.

Inwardly, Edelgard knew she had Byleth cornered. Her refusal to answer back meant more than whatever she had to say. “Join me,” she said, softening her tone as she sidled up to her captor. “Whatever your employer is giving you, _I_ can give it to you. Join me, and help me end this war!”

“You don’t know that,” Byleth retorted. She glanced over her shoulder, revealing a wan sort of smile. “Don’t promise something you can’t give.”

“I can’t if I don’t know what it is!” Edelgard was tired. Her patience was thinning, and it took all her energy to mask it with pleasantries. There _had_ to be an end to their stalemate. “You said that there are some things money can’t buy.”

Again, Byleth was visibly irked. She focused her attention back on the river.

“I asked if it was someone you love-...”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“You’re not denying it.” She swallowed back and tried to steady herself. Edelgard was getting somewhere. She knew it; she could _feel_ the prickliness of the other woman's mood mere inches away. “Whoever it is, I can save them,” she said, backing down, her tone firm with resolve. “With your crest, we can-”

“You don’t know that,” she repeated, her gaze stonily fixed on the river before them. This time, Byleth didn’t put up much of a fight. She didn’t even bother with her usual antics. “You don’t know what I want.” Whatever boorishness she displayed fizzled away with her crestfallen gaze. Her countenance was bereft of all the anger and all the irritation that bubbled mere seconds before. All that was left was the noh-mask - the uncanny face of indifference that always left a bone-shuddering chill down Edelgard’s spine. “And you will _never_ know it.”

The last bit echoed more as a warning. _It_ had to be. An argument bubbled up inside, but everything - reasoned arguments to pathetic pleas - all knotted into an awkward and gruff pinch in Edelgard’s throat. The rōnin held so much power over her, even when this was most free Edelgard had been since her capture. Her chest pulled taut whenever she faced that mask - the free-fall of being trapped in a gaze so callously indifferent to her existence.

“Let me!” she managed, perhaps becoming stubborn to a fault. Edelgard reached out her hand, which the injured rōnin tried to dodge and - to her annoyance - failed. The tips of her fingers brushed against the edge of her bindings, dithering close to her chest where the shoulder injury slithered down in a deep red gash.

A pulse. Something reverberated from Edelgard’s chest and waved over her like a frigid wind.

_‘What’s happening-...”_

Her eyes snapped open. Something was wrong. The weariness and fatigue she suppressed since that morning had set in. She could _feel_ the cold sweat again and the faint stuttering of her heart.

“Princess?” Byleth paled from that shared heartbeat. The two stepped back from the quivering touch.

Edelgard’s vision began to blur. What were once sharp outlines melded until they spiraled into something dizzying. Byleth was _just_ standing before her mere seconds ago. What happened to her?

“Princess!”

Edelgard lurched forward, sucking in her breath as she fought to swallow back the wad of air in her throat. Her legs swayed with her weight, and for a moment she felt the heady rush of falling. That is, until, Byleth snapped her out of it with the harsh yet reassuring grip of her hands as they immediately grabbed hold of her.

“You keep calling me that,” Edelgard blurted out, strangely annoyed and dizzy. She gulped down a roiling bubble of air and leaned (unwittingly) onto Byleth’s bad shoulder for balance.

Byleth bit back a pained groan as she felt the push of her weight against the wound, but the feeling quickly subsided once she caught a glimpse of the princess, whose sickly pallor was _much_ greater cause for concern.

“What else am I supposed to call you?” she snidely returned, hoping that the joking provocation was enough to keep her conscious. Byleth quickly heaved so as to steady the faint princess, wrapping timid arms around her waist.

Edelgard’s breathing grew hitched, and her eyes fluttered as they struggled to stay conscious. “Whoever they are,” she said, her voice was the smallest of whispers, “I hope they’re worth it.”

At first Byleth was confused. _Who_ exactly? It took her a moment to work it out, but once it set in, she was ready to drop the princess wholesale. _‘Really?!’_ Byleth scoffed inwardly. She couldn’t believe it. In the middle of a fainting spell, the princess found a way to circle back to the topic at hand. “Impressed as I am with your remarkable wit,” she said, feeling reproachful as she struggled to keep her on her feet, “I don’t think now is the time to jest.”

 _‘Shut up,’_ she wanted to say, but her mouth wouldn’t move.

Edelgard watched the world spin as she felt herself fall. She must have fallen for hours, plummeting into some void until she landed with her back flush against the hard earth. All she could remember before her consciousness faded was the warm touch of someone’s hands as they tenderly cradled her face.

* * *

Ferdinand came home to a city bereft of all sound and people. The march past the palace gates was somber, almost funereal. No one lined up to greet them. Doors were barred. Windows were shut. Nothing save masked guards greeted them, lined solemnly like statues on the path leading to the palace.

_‘Where is everyone?’_

The noble courtier climbed the palace steps with a lump in his stomach. He tried to clear it, once or twice, feigning a cough in front of his retinue as he did his best to walk stolidly across the atrium. Soon he would stand before the emperor, proof of the sad news that Hubert undoubtedly sent ahead. He had to steel himself.

“Ferdinand! My son!” The prime minister bellowed from his seat by the emperor’s throne. The minister was a stocky man, balding but no less worse for wear in his latter years. His complexion seemed positively pink when he grabbed Ferdinand by the arm. “I was so worried for you!”

“Father please,” Ferdinand begged, smiling apologetically as he wormed himself out of his father’s embrace. “We have a lot ahead of us. Our army was ambushed, and my position in the convoy has compromised our-...”

Ferdinand stopped when he first noticed it. The hunch was enough to knock out his breath. His eyes quickly scanned the room, racing against the thrashing in his chest. “Where’s the emperor?” he asked, tone falling flat when he noticed the remarkably empty throne.

The courtier whipped around. Nothing save the rustling of his robes could be heard in the vast emptiness of the throne room.

“Oh Ferdinand,” said the prime minister. His tone whined high, as if remarking on some regrettable happenstance in their day, “I always meant to tell you…”

Ferdinand stumbled closer to the throne room. His father kept talking - there were words, he was sure, but they seemed like muffled chatter. He didn’t understand it; he _couldn’t_ understand any of it. All he knew was that something pulled like a band in his chest, and before Ferdinand knew it he lurched forward with a welling sickness in his throat.

“Hubert-...” His voice was shaking. His shoulders were trembling. Ferdinand turned to face his father with disbelieving eyes. “Hubert was right.”

Normally, one would expect confusion - an instinctive need to clarify what he meant, but the unchanging impassivity of his father’s countenance was telling. No look of confusion or bewilderment disturbed his otherwise placid expression.

“Father,” he muttered through the last remnants of his disbelief. The word tapered, pinched as it was in his throat. There was no way his own _father_ could do this. No way…

“I am not surprised,” his father answered with a sigh. He turned back to the entrance, traipsing away from Ferdinand, like some mildly inconvenienced bystander. “Lord Vestra’s son was always a bright boy.”

“What did you do?!” It surprised even himself just how quickly he could traverse the span of the room. To Ferdinand, he blinked, and within a second he grabbed his father by the collar of his hakama. “Where is the emperor?!”

“Son, listen,” the prime minister coaxed, laying gentle hands on his arms, “there is an explanation for all of this.”

“You sent us to our _deaths_!” His arms shook his father like some lifeless doll. It wasn’t until the prime minister let out a jarring yelp of surprise that Ferdinand even realized what he was doing.

“I can explain.” The older man was quick to change his tune. “Just let me go, and I can explain.”

The rest was a blur.

Ferdinand didn’t even stop to watch when his father tumbled onto the ground, crying out like some whimpering mutt as he crawled away on all fours. Ferdinand couldn't breathe. He had to get out. His pace quickened to a near-sprint, weaving around the winding halls to go somewhere - _anywhere_.

“Looking for this?”

He stopped close to the palace entrance, where a woman, her hair a crown of a shimmering green, barred his escape. She donned a white miko’s robes, silken and luxurious in its billowing volume.

“Who are you?!” Ferdinand’s heart thrashed wildly against his chest. His eyes fixed at the strange woman, completely paralyzed from her gaze.

The woman raised her arm, letting the long kimono sleeves drop to reveal a severed head. The blood around the neck had dried long ago.

_‘No!’_

Ferdinand’s knees gave in. Everything sounded so hollow to him. His whole body seemed to sag with the sinking pull of gravity, and he wanted nothing more than to drown in it.

“Lady Rhea," a voiced called out from behind.

It was the prime minister. He was much calmer and more collected than before. “May I present to you my son? Ferdinand, this is the high Emissary and leader of the shoguns, Lady Rhea.” He fluttered out introductions like a bureaucrat scrambling after party guests.

“Lord Aegir,” she called out, not at all lowering her arm. “He doesn’t have it.” A menacing growl dogged her voice. “I checked.” She angrily threw the head forward, letting it roll before Ferdinand.

Ferdinand couldn’t breathe. The emperor’s severed head stared at him with eyes so cold, he couldn’t escape it. The discoloration in the skin glowed a sallow blue, and the mouth hung open, like the point of an abyss threatening to swallow his captive whole.

“You killed the emperor,” he barely managed. The tears finally fell, droplets drying the moment they touched the floor. “The emperor… Edelgard…”

The Emissary’s eyes darted to the courtier in question, her eyes squinting at the mention of the princess’s name.

“Does _she_ have it?”

The question was pointed at the prime minister now.

“We believe so,” he answered, bowing upon her word.

 _‘We?_ ’

“Very well,” she spoke, maintaining an imperious stoicism as she drew her sleeves together. “My general will bring her to me.”

“Yes, my lady.” The prime minister bowed his head lower to the ground, groveling with a deference Ferdinand had never before seen.

The Emissary nodded and turned. Guards donning silver crests on their uniforms emerged from the shadows, ready to hold the doors open for her exit. Ferdinand gaped at the strange sight of them. _‘Those aren’t our soldiers.’_

“Oh, and Lord Aegir?” The Emissary’s voice was smooth and gentle. If not for her macabre entrance, Ferdinand would have mistaken her for some harmless gentlewoman of the court.

“Yes, my lady?”

“Throw your son into the dungeon. We will hold him prisoner and interrogate him.”

“But… my lady!”

Rhea glanced at him over her shoulder, green eyes glowering against the twilight.

“Y-yes, my lady,” the prime minister conceded, bowing without argument.

Ferdinand didn’t see the guards who held him up. He didn’t notice when they bound his hands with chains, dragging his limp body across the room towards the dungeon. His eyes were fixed on the lifeless head of the emperor, lifeless gray eyes piercing him until the shadows closed in.

* * *

The chirping of crickets was annoyingly familiar by now. When Edelgard’s eyes snapped open, it was nightfall. Stars shone brightly in the absence of a moon, and the air smelled sweetly of a spring flowers in late bloom.

She wasn’t even shocked to find herself lying by a low fire. It crackled and licked towards her, sending sparks dangerously close to her hair.

_‘Did I faint again?’_

She raised her arm, more out of habit than any real desire to test it, but she nearly jumped when she was able to raise one without the other.

_‘Still no bindings?’_

Edelgard’s brows furled, bemused by the ronin’s rather telling recklessness. She raised both hands, eyeing her palms as they hovered against the starry sky before her. The low, orange light of the campfire cast stark shadows along the bruises that lined her wrists. Piqued, she angled them about, seeing where the rope had chafed on what was once unblemished skin.

“Hnngh…”

Edelgard scrambled to sit up. Her eyes probed the darkness for the noise.

“Hngh!”

Low moans came from the quiet corner, close to a tree stump.

Edelgard peered over, finding nothing but her familiar green hair splayed out on the ground. Close to a tree, Byleth was asleeping. Her eyes were pinched shut, and her features wrinkled with painful contortions. Next to them, the campfire roared as sparks ate into the kindling.

“Byleth?!”

Her body moved without another care or thought. Within seconds, Edelgard kneeled before Byleth, grabbing her by the shoulder. “Byleth?!”

But her concern was for naught. A quick glance showed nothing was amiss. Part of her hakama was drenched from the wound on her shoulder, where a gap in the fabric showed the tenderness of a still-healing gash on her flesh.

_‘She’s… sleeping?!’_

Edelgard fanned her hands over her mouth, suppressing a yelp of surprise when Byleth twitched in her sleep. Her jaw clenched tightly as she groaned, and her good hand shot up to her bad shoulder, clutching it as if to stop some sort of pain at its source.

_‘Her wound… she’s fighting off the infection.’_

Watching her captor struggle in her sleep, Edelgard _almost_ felt pity. Her lips pursed as she fell into a downcast stupor. She had secretly hoped that Byleth turned out to not be very human at all; that she didn’t need any sleep… that none of it was a jest.

 _‘What am I doing?!’_ She let out a hoarse sigh, pulling her legs toward her chest.

What _was_ she doing?

Edelgard buried her face between her knees. Clearly, Byleth didn’t plan for whatever had happened after the princess had fainted. She had no bindings, and from the looks of it, they weren’t very far from the last encampment. Healing from the injury must have drained her energy, in addition to the strain of carrying her body.

“You bear the crest of flames,” Edelgard murmured aloud, unafraid that her voice might wake Byleth.

Save for the pained contortions of her face, Byleth didn’t stir. She remained on the ground, struggling through whatever nightmare was plaguing her.

“So do I,” she continued pensively. She let a hand fall to the dusty ground. The tip of her finger traced circles - a playful distraction as the princess mulled over struggles of her own. “But I never learned how to use it. The crest stone has been dormant in me for as long as I can remember, and yet-...”

She paused. Her eyes returned to the rōnin, fixing a pointed look on the gash that bloodied her shoulder. “And yet you have it. You saved _my life_ with it.”

Edelgard’s mouth curled. Something wet warmed her cheeks, stinging the rims of her eyes as she tilted her head up. It was an old trick her mother once taught her. So long as she held her head high, no one would know that she was crying. “I have the crest stone in my heart, and yet I couldn’t save anyone. Not even my siblings…”

“Hmm… P-princess?”

The ronin stirred. She seemed to shake herself out of a dream, blinking back slowly as she turned.

Edelgard’s heart stuttered. Her eyes fixed on the sword that lay motionless by the rōnin’s side.

“What are you-”

Whatever whimsical fancy she had of confiding vanished when all life returned to Byleth. Fear gripped Edelgard's limbs, who moved quickly to her defense.

In one fell swoop, Edelgard unsheathed the sword and pinned Byleth back on the ground, just as she half-rose from her slumber.

Edelgard’s bare legs straddled Byleth’s waist as she drew the blade and bared it close to her neck. The steel’s edge flirted dangerously close to the pulse throbbing beneath her jaw.

“Don’t move,” she commanded. Her brusque tone matched the hard edge of the sword as it grazed Byleth’s skin.

Byleth blinked back. It took her a few more seconds to gather her senses. The low campfire blurred her figure, but the sheen of her silver hair was its own telltale sign. Silver strands enclosed Byleth’s vision, like webbing falling all around her. _She_ was held captive now.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice still low with lethargy. It didn’t escape Byleth’s notice that Edelgard neglected to restrain her hands.

Something stung close to her shoulder, searing into her flesh. Her eyes darted quickly to her healing injury - a nuisance the rōnin can't seem to escape.

“I won’t let you take me there.” There was a palpable tremor in Edelgard’s voice. Her raised arms twitched with hesitation. “I won’t let you sell me to my enemies.”

Much to her surprise, Byleth smiled. Her lips curled, wry with some sort of sick joke to which Edelgard wasn’t privy.

“Go ahead then,” she coughed up.

Edelgard _still_ hadn’t caught on when Byleth’s hand wrapped around her wrists. But instead of fighting, she raised her arms higher, letting the blade’s edge cut into the thick of her neck.

_“!”_

The princess sucked in a sharp gasp. Her hands froze, resisting Byleth’s pull as she fought to keep the blade away.

“Go ahead,” Byleth egged on, their clasped hands shaking against each other. “Kill me.”

The sword was rattling in Edelgard’s hands.

“What are you doing?! Let go! Stop!”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. She didn’t know why she was fighting Byleth; why her hands stayed the blade as it edged close to the rōnin’s throat. Her heart beat frantically, throbbing in her ears like a command to end such willful defiance.

Edelgard’s eyes pinched shut when the struggle ended.

She let go of the sword.

Byleth flung it in the last second. The tip of the blade left a small cut along her jaw.

In the dark, the two women heard it land with a thud as the steel pierced into the earth.

Edelgard’s eyes fixed on the woman lying beneath her. She wanted to cry. She almost had her freedom, and she let it go.

“Wrong move, princess.”

For a moment, Edelgard breathed, and in the span of that breath, Byleth whipped her around and rolled over, straddling _her_ with newfound dominance. The princess didn’t even resist when her back was flush against the ground and her hair splayed out in endless strands as the rōnin hovered above her. Unlike Edelgard, Byleth was careful to learn from mistakes. She immediately clasped the princess's wrists, pinning them over her head.

Dark blue eyes, darker and deeper than the night sky above them, bore into hers.

“You couldn’t kill me even if you wanted to.”

Jagged breaths met as their faces hovered close. Edelgard’s eyes were fluttering, heavy as they were with sleep. The night sky, the campfire, the Emissary… what did it matter in the end? All along, she knew something pulled them together. And she felt it at that moment, when Byleth’s chest pressed against hers and their hearts shared the stutter of a beat.

“Could you, princess?” The sound of Byleth’s voice was surprisingly small - it was the lowest she had ever heard it. She meant it as a provocation, but something wistful pulled her words into a tapering silence.

It was a provocation, and Edelgard knew it for what it was. But not even that provocation could get Byleth the answer she wanted. What did she care anymore for answers? As far as she knew, by sunrise, she was going to die.

So instead of words, she tried something else.

Edelgard almost laughed at the noise of surprise Byleth made when she leaned in, reaching up so she could pull her captor into a hungry kiss. The rōnin’s grip relaxed in response, and before long, the princess’s hands coiled their way into Byleth’s hair - uncouth and knotty as it was.

The kiss was sloppy at first. Their lips fumbled through the motions, clumsy and heated as they explored each other. Byleth let out a slight, shuddering gasp and almost ended it all. She instinctively drew away, knowing better than to fall so easily into what must have been a trap.

But Edelgard’s fingers were already caught in the tangles of Byleth’s hair, and _she_ was much warmer than the rōnin initially thought. Edelgard usually disliked such flimsy excuses, but they seemed adequate enough. At least, they were good enough to stave off every impulse as Edelgard yearned for the answer. She deepened the kiss with the soft exhalation of her breath. Her legs coiled around Byleth’s waist, pulling her closer when heady kisses weren’t enough.

Byleth was burning. Cold sweat beaded down her hairline, and the air was thick with their hitched breaths. She felt her skin redden with the heat of the princess’s touch, flush as she already was in her embrace.

“Don’t stop,” Edelgard pleaded. Her voice ghosted close to her mouth in such lilting tones. “Don’t let me go.”

Byleth allowed herself a moment of hesitation - one final breath before she plunged, headfirst, into the unknown. At the very least, she clearly didn’t mind being told what to do. All it took was Edelgard’s murmured whispers, and suddenly she was closing the gap between them. This time, she parted the princess’s mouth wider for a taste of her tongue.

“No,” she snapped breathlessly, startled by the delicious pull of it.

Her eyes pinched shut. Her head shook, but her hands remained stubbornly along Edelgard’s cheek, cradling her face as she had done a few too many times. “We can’t.”

“Why not?” Edelgard’s eyes were half closed. She was lost somewhere between the heady thrill of it and the sobering reality that lied in wait. She hungrily leaned in for another kiss, but she was met with nothing but a gap in the air as Byleth pulled away. The princess let out a soft whine as she pulled her back.

“No!” The rōnin fumbled out of her arms and landed noisily through the dirt. The impact of it all made her wince from pain, but it wasn’t enough to stop her.

“Byleth!”

There was hurt in Edelgard’s voice, and it _almost_ brought her right back.

For a while the two said nothing. Edelgard half sat up, searching the dark outlines of the forest for the ronin’s silhouette as she seemed to fade with the encroaching shadows.

“You should get some rest, princess,” she spoke in a firm yet nevertheless barely audible whisper. She didn’t turn to face Edelgard. She didn’t _dare_ it. Instead, Byleth smoothed over the awkwardness of her struggle by clearing her throat. “We move at dawn.”

The rōnin had left before Edelgard could get a word in. She reached her hand out to the faint outlines that had disappeared. Byleth had stormed off - lost to the rustle of leaves and a frigid breeze.

“Byleth! Wait!”

Edelgard stayed motionless. She didn’t notice that her kimono was half slipping off, loose as it was from their misguided entanglements.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm really sorry, but I was insecure about this chapter. Idk I felt like it might bore you all, so I hope it didn't >.< Feel free to leave a kudos or review to let me know your thoughts. What do y'all think so far?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was chapter was a bit tricky. I fiddled around with giving each character their perspective of contiguous events, so I'm sorry if the line breaks were a bit abrupt. 
> 
> Also warning again for graphic violence

Late spring evenings were always too warm for their own good. Accustomed as Byleth was to the great outdoors, constant exposure to inclement weather never did her any favors. Simpletons lucky enough to have homes would consider the weather perfect, but for wandering samurai, the air was intoxicatingly thick, and Byleth, in particular, was already having trouble breathing.

She could still taste it - taste _her_.

Byleth ran just to get away from it. She fought through brambles of thorns and bushes, finding solace in the absentminded task of simply _running_. Still, the air was absolutely _rank_ with the smell of her: flowers, honey-... Why did she have to smell so _sweet_?

Byleth clumsily wiped her mouth with the back of her arm, tasting more of her cold sweat as she whipped past the recalcitrant foliage.

 _‘No good,’_ she thought, panting heavily through her sprint, _‘no good… I can’t-’_

Her eyes flicked upward - a foolish, counterintuitive habit humans do whenever they fall. Her sandals were caught on a protruding rock, and instinctively angling her landing was all she could do to cut short her sharp gasp of surprise.

At least it was her good shoulder that took the brunt of her fall. Not that it stopped her entire side from absolutely _stinging_ when the ground hit and her sight flashed a blinding white upon impact. Byleth gritted through the pain, ungracefully landing with her mouth funneling up dirt. Lying there, groaning as she turned to a more comfortable position, reminded her just how much she hated wildernesses.

 _“Don’t leave me,”_ said the princess mere seconds before.

Byleth sat up, struggling to do so with one shoulder burning like a thousand stitches had come undone.

 _‘Don’t leave me?’_ she played the words back in her head, and a few more iterations were enough to fuel her disdain. Byleth sighed through her bemusement, shaking her head against such trite sentiment. What kind of _fool_ begs for her captor to stay, anyway?

“Hrgh… Ah!!”

Something sharp speared through her shoulder, which had grown swollen and hot during her desperate trek through the forest. She glanced at the wound in question - the fabric was dark and crusted over where blood had dried. _‘Shit,’_ she muttered under her breath. Byleth bit down and hissed through gritted teeth as she slowly peeled the torn sleeve back.

“Hnngh… _GAAH!”_ Her cry roared through the din as she ripped it off, exposing her tender gashes anew. Byleth leaned back with her good hand pitched to the ground. She panted through desperate breaths, sighing back as if parched for the hot stifling air. She had no way of knowing or looking, but she knew she was pale. She could feel the numbing coolness of her sweat as it dripped down her brow.

An infection. She hadn’t even uttered the word and already her shoulder shivered with a foreboding chill.

 _‘This is_ exactly _what I needed,’_ she thought sardonically to herself. Byleth threw her head back and let out a delirious sort of cackle. _‘An infection…’_

Her eyes rolled up to the starry dome above, moonless yet nevertheless resplendent in its own right.

_‘Is it for someone you love?’_

For some reason or another, her mind kept circling back to that same guess - that half-cocked, air-headed fantasy of a romance the princess had concocted in her boredom. Someone she _loved?_ Byleth clicked her tongue disapprovingly, grimacing from the bitterness the word left in her mouth.

She had no one she loved.

She just wanted to go home.

A deep sigh rolled through her good shoulder, and soon the pains of her anger softened into something else entirely. A pout, sullen and lonesome as her dark blue eyes contemplated the tapestry of stars above her. They were all so bright, and despite their distance, they shone all the brighter.

Byleth recalled how, the night before, Edelgard too gazed longingly at the stars - though not quite for the same reason. Her own wistful fancies were directed at her captor, an enigmatic fixation that Byleth _knew_ she had to shake off. It was for both their sakes… not that she _had_ to worry about the princess, or anything like that.

Her pout quickly crinkled into a graver frown.

 _‘No,’_ she adamantly repeated to herself. She definitely did _not_ care about the princess. And she definitely did _not_ enjoy that kiss, which was a serious lapse in both their judgments. At least Byleth could fault her fever. The princess, after all, had woken her from much-needed rest, and she was already hazy with chills.

Byleth shook her head again and groaned.

‘ _Enough thinking about the princess,’_ she chided herself. ‘ _Enough thinking-’_

A high-pitched whistle whizzed past Byleth’s cheek. Something sharp scratched at the surface of her skin. Byleth followed the noise where it had already snapped raucously onto a nearby tree. Off to the distance, she caught sight of an arrow’s silhouette, wiggling in place where it had pierced into the trunk.

Her eyes snapped open in time to react for the next volley.

 _“GAH!_ Argh… come _on_!” she yelled through gritted teeth. Her bad arm rose in time to catch the second arrow. The rōnin hissed and reeled from the pain, thankful that it pierced her upraised hand when it had flitted through the air and _almost_ struck between her eyes.

Byleth didn’t even bother clamping down her jaw when she broke the arrow’s shaft with her bare hand and pulled it out of her palm.

Another whistled from the thicket nearby, and this time Byleth rolled away fast enough to dodge it entirely.

“Show yourself coward!” she roared at the shadows. The rōnin steadied her hitched breaths in time to sprint across the clearing, acutely aware of the arrows making a trail right behind her feet. ‘ _So they have good aim,’_ Byleth mused with a roll of her eye, _‘but that won’t help them in the forest.’_

She dove behind a tree, biting down on her tongue as the impact made both shoulder and hand burn with newfound agony. Byleth flattened her back against a tree and pressed her bleeding hand close against her chest. Her pulse beat wildly against her temples, deafening as she breathed through her panic.

_‘I’m afraid?’_

The ceaseless thumping against her chest seemed to suggest it. She tried to calm herself - a feat made difficult by her fever. Her good hand felt around her waist for her sword. She followed the girth of her waistband only to be met by the weighty absence of a scabbard gone missing.

_‘Shit...’_

Byleth craned her neck back and laughed. She had left her katana with the princess. The same delirious cackle returned, and not even the pain of her brand new injury could stop it. She hugged her hand close and hissed through its throbbing.

She couldn’t believe it - after so many years - this was the place where she would die.

Another whistling sound, this time pitchy and ringing, seemed to descend from the heavens. It fell with the wave of a void, like the sound of something heavy dropping.

_'Wait… what’s that?’_

Byleth jumped just as the blast splintered the tree deftly along the trunk. That part of the glen was left completely in cinders. Behind her, the sound of flames roared and licked at her feet. She rolled on the ground to put out whatever smoke followed her hakama and quickly slithered out of the grass and onto the next tree.

“Do you know what this is?” a strangely familiar voice asked. Quiet footsteps stalked closer.

Byleth was tempted to look over her cover. She couldn’t quite pin it, but she _knew_ she had heard his voice before.

“In the West, they call it a bomb - a concoction mixed with gunpowder and other volatile chemicals. You’ve seen its like before.”

A twig snapped not too far from her tree.

Another whistling sound...

Byleth dove for the ground, and her last sanctuary was once again blasted into smithereens. Black smoke clouded her vision, making her cough as a piercing ringing deafened her left ear.

“That’s the beauty of science,” the man continued, laughing darkly as he approached. “All I do is light it with a flint,” he paused, and the sound of something coarse sparked against metal until a bright flame flashed in the dark, “and then I throw it.”

Another one.

This time, he was just showing off. Byleth barely had to roll to the other side when one bomb landed a few feet away from her, eviscerating the ground and lighting everything green on fire.

Her assailant stepped into the dim light. His wan pallor shone against the golden hue of the nearby fires. There was a gaunt look on his face, and it showed nothing short of imperious determination.

Without waiting for her to speak, the man walked to Byleth - surprised that his own leisurely pace was faster than her glacial crawl away from him.

“You’re alone,” he remarked.

The sound of metal sliding out of its sheathed rang beautifully in the air. The steel shone silver beneath the moonless night, and it was nothing short of entrancing once he had pointed its sharpened at the rōnin. His katana was well-made, Byleth had to admit. The point of the blade hovered mere inches from her nose.

“Where’s Lady Edelgard?”

Byleth sputtered out a cough. Her lips widened to a cheeky grin as she looked up, her breathing jagged from the race for her life. “Oh,” she said, unamused, “you’re that retainer.”

His eyes narrowed. He raised the katana so that the edge grazed her neck. “I have no time for your japes.”

“The truth is, she won’t leave... ” she said, her voice still tapering with pained laughter. Byleth stopped to cough up something wet. Her mouth tasted of iron now, and it only got worse with each tired heave of her lungs. “Trust me,” the words came out in between hoarse coughs, “I tried.”

She was surprised to see him move the sword away, but her shock had quickly subsided when she felt the harsh blow of his kick against her ribcage. Byleth writhed as she hugged her stomach, but the retainer wouldn’t have any of it. He heeled his boot onto her injured arm, indifferent to her cries of pain when he kicked her over so that she faced him once more.

“I’ll ask again,” he resumed, kneeling on her torso. Byleth gasped as she felt most of his weight crush her chest. His free hand grabbed her by the throat, half raising her from the ground until their eyes met. “ _Where_ is Lady Edelgard?”

The retainer’s vice-grip made it impossible to breathe. He was of a tactical mind - that much was certain. But even the most coldblooded strategists have faults… _all_ too human faults.

 _‘Humans.’_ The word echoed hollow in Byleth’s thoughts. It was a word she always loathed; a word that carried with it nothing but bitter memories and the repulsive taste of metal. The rōnin sputtered out more blood as she pointed a stern look at him. She was all too aware of how human he was: the furl of his mouth as it twisted in anger; the unrelenting rage which gleamed with the thrill of a victory close at hand. She could even hear the low yet persistent beating of his heart as it pulsed with adrenaline. ‘ _Strange,’_ she suddenly thought, ‘ _I never hear the princess’s unless-...’_

“Heh.” The laugh came out more audibly than Byleth intended. It was more of a cough than a laugh, but she found it rather difficult to do either in her present state.

The retainer appeared unamused. His already grave grimace deepened, and his eyes lit with fervid impatience. Yet to Byleth’s surprise, he didn’t follow his displeasure with more questions. Rather, he held fast to his sword and fixed a guarded, albeit inquisitive, gaze on his prey.

“She’s special,” Byleth blurted out. Her chest heaved and ached from the already tender gash on her shoulder. The soreness reverberated through her arm - a far cry from the numbing sting she felt on her still-bleeding hand. Yet she breathed through it all, savoring the crisp chillness of the air as it burned hot in her lungs. “She’s special,” she repeated. “I’ll give you that…”

The retainer scowled as he shook her by the collar. “ _Enough_ ,” he gruffly commanded. “If you don’t tell me where to find her, then I will-!”

“ _STOP!”_

So much for deriding humans. Byleth almost grumbled when _her_ heart fluttered, its rapid pulse loud with irony.

“Hubert! Stop!”

The princess fumbled in the weeds as she desperately limped towards them. Her hair was scattered, and her features were awfully contorted. It was unflattering, actually, and if Byleth had been in better health, Edelgard’s present state of duress would have been a jest ripe for the taking.

The menacing man she called Hubert stared back dumbfounded, eyes snapping open at the sight of his princess flailing about. “Lady Edelgard, I-...”

For someone so tall and otherwise… bulky, Hubert was quick and rather graceful with his feet. He was off of Byleth within seconds, running to his master with his sword safely returned to its sheath. “Your majesty,” he stammered out, breathless as he kneeled before her. He bowed his head low, sinking into the shadow of her otherwise shorter stature. “I didn’t dare-... I didn’t think-”

Byleth sat up on her good arm, squinting at the two with a cocked brow.

Edelgard stood before her retainer, shoulders rising and falling through panted breaths. “Let her go Hubert.” Her voice was somewhere between a command and a plea. “Please,” she sighed out the word through her exhaustion, sinking until she too was on her knees before him. “Let her go.”

* * *

Hubert moved on instinct when he saw Edelgard lurch forward. She was fully conscious, he knew, but whatever her reasons were, he had to stop it. His hands held fast to her arms, gripping her steady before her knees could sink to the ground.

“Your majesty!” he cried out.

She felt surprisingly heavy, despite how ragged and frail she looked compared to when he last saw her. His mouth pulled taut just thinking of those three days - three days of endless searching, of planning, and of hoping against hope that she was still alive. Now here she was, in the flesh, and she was crying for him to let her captor go.

The princess’s eyes snapped open once she felt the impact of his arms. “Forgive me, Hubert,” she said, mildly embarrassed at the strange and unexpected contact.

“It’s quite alright.” His voice was breathy - a far cry from his sharp tones with Byleth just seconds prior. His eyes widened with panic when he noticed faint scarring all over her arms and the bloodied rag tied around her waist. “You’re injured. We must get you back to the capital! I have a horse… if we leave now-”

“Hubert, _please_!” This time, it really _was_ a command. Edelgard rose so her eyes were level with her retainer’s. “It can wait. For now-...” Edelgard turned to where the rōnin was, lying with a nonplussed expression.

“Oh me?” Byleth cajoled, her torso jerking upwards from her subdued laughter. “Don’t mind me. Please,” she said, smiling as she hissed through gritted teeth from the intermittent sting on her shoulder, “carry on.”

Edelgard’s lips curled to a taut frown. Hubert was remiss. His eyes darted to and fro, mildly skeptical at… There was a word for it, and his mouth twitched at the remarkable gap in his mind. He watched silently as the princess ran from his side to the rōnin. Through the white noise of his muddled thoughts, he even heard her utter the rogue’s name.

“Byleth,” she had said. There was a softness to it that made his skin crawl.

‘ _Affection_.’ The word finally came to his mind when he saw the princess draw the rōnin’s injured hand into hers, cradling the filth with her palms. Hubert’s lips pursed as if he had tasted something bitter.

“You shouldn’t have ran away,” Edelgard chided. She tore another piece of fabric from her kimono and wrapped it around the rōnin’s hand to stop the bleeding.

Hubert noticed that the hem of the robe was completely undone now. With her kimono now torn and disheveled, his princess looked like a pauper.

Byleth gave an ample pout. “Maybe your retainer shouldn’t have attacked me.” Her tone was prickly when she raised her wounded hand, wincing as she made her best effort at forming it into a fist. The two carried on, bickering like some old-married couple.

“What is this?” Hubert asked curtly. He laid a ready hand on his katana, approaching the two women with half a mind to pull Edelgard back. “What is the meaning of this?” His fingers coiled tightly around his sword’s hilt. “She tried to _kill_ you.”

“ _Hubert-_ ” Edelgard started, ready to reassert her authority if she had to.

But her delivery was cut short. Byleth pushed her behind, leaning forward as her arms instinctively reached for a katana that wasn’t there. “Back off,” she spoke with a low growl.

Her countenance was stony and unmoving, and, despite having his own checkered history, Hubert found it chilling.

“ _Enough_ , the both of you!”

The princess shot up from where she knelt. Her countenance was grave, and her eyes (watery from tears she had shed moments before) now brimmed with rage. Edelgard marched to Hubert in a huff. “ _Please_ ,” she pleaded again, this time more sternly, “give me some time.” She craned her neck to glance back at the rōnin, who kept an ever watchful eye on Hubert.

“ _No_.” Hubert surprised even himself. He was not one to question the princess, and he didn’t know why he had to start now. “Your majesty, if I may, we must leave at once.”

“No, _you_ may not,” she returned. The furl of her brow and the slight quiver of her lip were telltale habits her retainer knew well: Edelgard would brook no protests. She was imperious when she wanted to be, and she _dared_ him to check her authority.

“Very well,” he relented. His posture tensed with newfound obedience. Yet his eyes still glowered at the sight of the rōnin, who leaned on her arms, bored at their little aside. “As your retainer, I advise you to make this quick.”

“Of course,” she said, sighing with relief once he had relaxed.

The tall man stalked close to the shadows, letting the leaves rustle to let his audience know that he would respect their wishes.

Something wrong, like a pinch in his chest, tugged at him to stay. For three days he had scoured the forest for the imperial princess, evading wolves, bandits, and other less savory types in search of her. And all the while, the woman most responsible for her disappearance had curried her favor. Hubert’s jaw clenched with discomfort.

“Your majesty,” he turned back close to the edge of the glen. The other two looked at him. “My horse is nearby. I will bring her close, and you have until then.”

Edelgard nodded. “I won’t take long.”

* * *

With momentary peace achieved, Edelgard sighed as she watched Hubert’s outline recede into the dark outlines of the forest.

“What are you doing?” Byleth barked the question. Like a dog nursing her wound, she curled inward, her hand cradled close to her chest as she turned away from the princess. “You’re rescued now, remember?” The rōnin groaned as she tried to get up. Her already wan complexion worsened into something sickly. Even Edelgard could see beads of sweat glistening from the ends of her hair as they pooled above her brow. “You should leave,” she added with a low growl.

“What?” Edelgard asked, an edge of derision in her voice. “Am I just ‘another princess in need of a rescue’ to you?” She mimed the insult as she remembered it, matching what she could recall of Byleth’s snide tone. For her part, Byleth scoffed, somewhat surly now that _she_ was the target of mockery. Still, it was a gesture not without affection. The princess lowered herself back to the spot beside the injured swordmaster. She laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, her brows knitted with worry once she felt a damp warmth on the hakama sleeve. “This was supposed to be healed.”

Byleth’s cheeks dimpled with a grumpier pout. She found the princess’s meddling rather irksome, and she was not afraid to let her know it. “I opened it again carrying you. You _really_ need to stop fainting.”

The jest fell flat on Edelgard, whose stern countenance was unmoved by the rōnin’s facade. Was she _really_ going to pretend that she didn’t labor for three days to keep her alive and captive? That they kissed and _she_ ran away? The princess’s mouth curled as she chewed the inside of her cheek nervously, mulling over a deafening noise of thoughts.

“What?” Byleth snapped, averting her gaze as she perched her bad arm on her raised knee. “If you’re going to say something, say it.” She pointed a surly look at the princess, hugging her leg closer to her chest.

Edelgard tried her hardest to maintain composure as she tiptoed around whatever it was the rōnin was going through. If the kiss was _that_ bad (Edelgard _herself_ didn’t find it an unpleasurable experience), she wished Byleth would just spit it out. She could bear the brunt of rejection head-on, but such traipsing around was beyond grating.

“Come with me,” said Edelgard, letting out a long, drawn-out exhalation of her breath as she steeled herself.

“What?” Byleth spluttered in her confusion.

Edelgard leaned in. Her hand darted to Byleth’s injured one, wrapping frail fingers around her palm. “If you go to your… _employer_ tomorrow, empty-handed, you’ll die.”

The rōnin chuckled. “You worried for me, princess? If so, I’m _touched_.” The glib huff in her voice bordered closer to disdain than sarcasm, and it was then that Edelgard knew she was treading on something delicate. “Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, definitely less amused now that she was the object of the princess’s pity. “I can’t stand that- what with how loud your heart beat is…”

Edelgard had to suppress the noise of surprise. “You-... you can hear my heartbeat?”

“Of course I can,” Byleth replied with a scathing roll of her eyes. “I hear it anytime you’re close to me.”

Edelgard studied her for the moment, desperately trying (but failing) to mask the soft, expectant look of wanting to hear _more_.

“... What?” Byleth asked, her tone inflecting concern with the change in the princess's demeanor.

“Nothing, it’s just…” Edelgard paused, letting a downtrodden gaze fall to her lap. Her kimono was so torn, she hadn’t realized how much of the hem revealed her legs. The faded fabric brushed close to her knees. “My father said he hasn’t heard my heartbeat in years… not since I was a child.”

Now it was Byleth’s turn to be confused. “That… scar on your chest,” she said, remembering the wrinkles of discolored lines all over the princess’s body - the most prominent one hidden between her breasts. “You said you got it a long time ago.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Edelgard quickly cut in. Her hold on Byleth’s hand tightened, sucking in another breath as she shifted. “Come with me,” she tried again, her earnest eyes gleaming. “There’s nothing left for you out there, but together… Together, we can-”

Byleth snatched her hand back. Her body shook with what should have been laughter, but it was a noise altogether mirthless. “That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. Her voice was stubbornly emotionless in its delivery. “There is nothing you can offer me.”

Edelgard bit back a sharp gasp. Something pinched in her throat and made her chest shrink into itself. “So you’ll die and waste your power because you _refuse_ to admit it.”

“Admit _what_ exactly?” she retorted, questioning eyes now dim with indifference.

“That this is _fate_!” Edelgard’s voice clamored above the tree line. Her hands, clenched into fists along her sides, shaking with unspoken frustration. “We were _destined_ to meet each other. I was _meant_ to meet the most powerful crest-bearer in living history!”

Byleth keeled back. Her nose wrinkled as she let out a breathless scoff. To Edelgard, she looked nothing short of disgusted. “ _Foolish_ girl,” she spat out the insult with unforgiving disdain, “you really _do_ read too much poetry. Get your head out of the clouds.” The rōnin rose abruptly and repulsed Edelgard back, letting her fall to the ground. “You think I am some pawn - some piece to your grand puzzle, but you are wrong. I am not what you think I am, and I am _not_ your plaything.”

“Byleth!” Edelgard called out her name, but she didn’t know why. All she knew was that her heart was crumbling into itself, and what should have been simple disappointment swelled into something more tender. “Listen to me!”

“Do you _think_ you’re the first person I’ve ever kissed? The first woman to fool me with baseless promises of _destiny_?” Byleth towered over Edelgard, menacing her with a gaze so impenetrably blank and absent. She inched forward, making the princess crawl backwards in terror. “Someone's already beaten you to it, princess, and believe me, I’ve learned early on _never_ to trust my heart to another.”

The area around them seemed to glow with dark energy. Edelgard could feel it all over, like ants on her skin. “Byleth, stop!” she said, feeling faint once more. The thrashing in her heart was beginning to subside, slowing to a dangerously lethargic pace against the overwhelming pressure of the rōnin’s rage. “Byleth… _please_ ,” she begged, her words fading to a soft murmur. _‘Why does it feel like…’_ She could feel each pulse growing faint, like it was dithering to a stop, ‘... _I can’t breathe?’_

“PRINCESS!”

A sharp metallic sound rang in the air, flashing between Edelgard and Byleth. Edelgard’s eyes deadened as she smelled blood in the air and the unpleasant sound of flesh tearing against metal.

By the time she was fully conscious of it all, the princess could only stare in her shock. Hubert was in front of her, his sword drawn and pointed at the rōnin. A warm red glow burst into a blinding light as the faint smell of ash and smoke quietly settled around them.

“Hubert!”

“Your majesty, run!”

Hubert was struggling. His whole body was shaking, fighting to push the blade down on his opponent. But the katana stayed. Byleth held the steel by its edge, single handedly stopping it with one arm as her eyes glowed with inhuman strength.

Edelgard swiftly rose to her feet. Her hands dragged Hubert back. “No _don’t_! Stop! She won’t hurt us!”

For all his faults, Hubert was at the very least obedient. Upon Edelgard’s command, he withdrew his sword, wordlessly sheathing it back as the demon before them glowed with a mysterious light. He was wary, to say the least. Edelgard could sense _his_ fears, and he was right to be afraid. Byleth used her crest again, and simply being around it almost made her heart stop.

After a few tense moments, the rōnin found their retreat satisfactory. The light vanished, and before long she was back to her normal self. “You should go,” she said quietly, turning around so she no longer faced them.

It didn’t escape Edelgard’s notice that Byleth had no limp or signs of injury in her posture. Her shoulder no longer slouched, and her hand didn’t curl from unrelenting pain. She seemed, by all accounts, utterly normal. ‘ _Does the crest… heal her wounds? But then why-...’_

“Princess of Hresvelg,” Byleth called out, cutting through the other woman’s thoughts, “I wish you victory in this war.”

Edelgard looked up, startled. Everything was happening too fast. She could barely keep up with her own breathing. “You can’t mean that.” Everything was spiraling. Her own legs felt shaky. "You're not _leaving_ me!"

“You’re her protector, aren’t you?” Byleth pointed a surly look at Hubert. He didn’t answer. He only stared dumbfounded that he was even being addressed. “You saw how dangerous it is for her to be near me.”

It was so out of character for Hubert to be shaken. Stunned was more like it. “What do you-”

“I said take her and _go_ ,” Byleth barked back. This time, she resumed her walk, turning her back with finality as she took the first steps away from the princess.

Hubert nodded. When it came to her majesty’s safety, it was not his place to think. At that point, he only had to act. “Forgive me, my lady,” he whispered close to Edelgard.

It was not until she felt Hubert’s bony arms lock her down, cinching her waist so as to drag her from the spot, that she realized how hard she fought and thrashed. The princess struggled, calling out to the rōnin’s now receding figure. “Wait! Don’t walk away from me!” She tasted salt so close to her lips. Her eyes stung. She didn’t know why it hurt so much to watch Byleth walk away.

“Oh and by the way...” Byleth paused, turning back with a smile at the princess. Edelgard’s heart raced unevenly. She fluctuated between breathing and suffocating, and the suspense only made things more stifling. “You were right,” she continued. “I was doing it for someone I love. Or, at least I loved them once…”

That there was a hint of melancholy in her voice didn’t surprise Edelgard. Somehow, hearing the rōnin was capable of love was its own glimmer of hope. “Byleth!” she cried out one last time, but her voice was muffled. Hubert had swept off of her feet, wrapping her in his cloak as he swung the princess’s limp body over his horse.

The endless seconds afterward passed like a blur to Edelgard, who looked longingly at the outline of the forest where her rōnin had disappeared.

* * *

Sunrise came fast for Dimitri, who stayed awake through the night with the vigilant patience of a monk. He sat in his tent, breathing in and out as he steeled himself for imminent battle.

A soldier rushed in, letting the entrance flap wildly with the wind. The soft candlelight of his tent flickered, disrupting the meditative calm of his environs.

“My lord,” reported the samurai, “scouts have sighted the mercenary, but she appears alone.”

The shogun glanced over his shoulder. “She lost the princess?”

The samurai bowed his head low. “We do not know, my lord, but the rōnin is closing in on the camp... alone.”

Dimitri breathed in, letting his lungs swell with the thick morning air before softly exhaling through his mouth. Both his hands were perched on his knees, his fingers curling through the rage that churned in his limbs. His icy blue eyes flicked upward to his regalia: the legendary Naginata of his father hovered in display. The shogun had been waiting to use the pole-arm throughout the war, and now the time came for him to use it.

“So she has betrayed us,” he announced. The entire tent seemed to tremble beneath the weight of his voice.

His vassal bowed his head even lower, fearing for the repercussions of his lord’s questions. “It appears so, my lord.”

The shogun rose. “Get the men ready,” he commanded. He closed his eyes once more and brushed back slivers of his uncouth hair.

“For the ronin my lord?” he asked quizzically. Dimitri threw a sharp menacing glance at his samurai, which made the subordinate quake with terror. “Understood my lord,” he said, quick to change his tune. The samurai bowed and made a hasty exit from the tent.

Dimitri turned back to the Naginata floating on its stand like the centerpiece of a ritual. The pole-arm’s blade was made from dragon bone - a family ‘secret’ he never quite believed until much recently. It pulsed with a power that he only felt once before in his entire life.

 _“El?”_ the voice of a frightened boy had asked so many years before. There was blood on the shoji screens, he could recall. By the time he opened them, it was too late. A girl who once had brown hair was curled up in the center of the room. She was crying - the lone survivor of a massacre that would haunt him to this day.

He could still remember her eyes. They were hollow, red, and hazy with bloodlust.

“Someday, Edelgard,” he murmured to himself as his gloved hand grabbed the weapon, “you will _pay_.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my editor (my bf) warned me that the revelations in this chapter are a tad too subtle for him. He wanted me to include this warning that it might be necessary to go back and look for hints if you're confused or have some questions. I disagree, but I also created it, so... Hope yall enjoy LOL
> 
> Also warning: the sections in italics are recollections from a major character who will appear again much later.

_Her hair was the most luscious green: dark, earthy, and full of life._

_I peeked over the foliage, pushing away a latticework of vines so I could see more of her beautiful hair. The surrounding mist of the spring blurred my view, but the shape of her stood out like a shadow, soft and pleasing to the eye. The spring’s waterfall was like a sheet of glass, draping softly over the creature’s bare shoulders as the waters flowed gently into the bubbling pond._

_“I know you’re there,” the creature called out. Her voice was surprisingly deep, but it melted like a song that rang so sweetly to my ears. “Show yourself.”_

_I was a young shrine maiden then. All I knew of the world were castle walls and the impenetrable forest that surrounded them. I didn’t know what would come once I stepped out into the clearing. My sandals brushed against the shrubs barring the path. “I-... forgive me,” I demurred. My heart panicked at the thought of having been discovered._

_“Who are you, and why are you here?” The creature’s blank expression only made her questions more terrifying. Her eyes, like a sea of dark blue, bore into my soul with an unimaginable sadness. Sadness? No… maybe that’s not it. Loneliness? At the time, I wanted nothing more than to hold her._

_“I saw you. I saw you fall from the stars last night,” I confessed. I still remember it…_

_The mist sprinkled all over my white hakama sleeves as she approached, like she was bringing rain wherever she went. I had never ventured so far outside the palace before, but the falling star beckoned to me. A part of me couldn’t believe it. There she was: standing before me, naked as day and bathing in the sacred pools of the kingdom. “I wanted to find the star.”_

_The creature smiled. The pond rippled soundlessly as she stepped away from the sheet of water pouring from the cliffs above. “Well? Am I the star you were looking for?”_

_She was strange. Yet with eyes so empty, bereft of anything but sadness, she managed to sound cheerful._

_“My name is Seiros,” I said, holding out my hand so she would step out of the pool. “What’s yours?”_

_I can still see her face. I think of it still, that soft and sad smile of one lost at sea and resigned to her fate. She grabbed my hand and took it in hers._

_“I don’t remember,” she answered. “All I know is, I know this place. My mother once took me here.”_

_I remember smiling back, more out of politeness than any real understanding. The creature used to say the most confusing things. She had an innocence not even the most sheltered mikos were capable of._

_“Then I’ll give you a name,” I offered._

_I was young then, and I didn’t know what meaning our meeting would have for my life. At the time, I saw her like a lost child, and I felt as much when I pushed back the wandering strands of her hair, seeing more of her and how beautiful she was._

_“Kaguya.” It was a sentimental name - one that filled my head with fantasy and romance as a child._

_“Kaguya?” she repeated. She turned her head as her eyes brightened expectantly._

_“Yes, Kaguya,” I said. “She was a princess who fell from the sky… just like you!”_

_“Kaguya,” she repeated again, wrinkling her lip as if to mull it over some more, “I like it.” Her chest suddenly glowed with her newfound mirth, bearing silver markings that were wholly foreign to me._

_I stepped back, suppressing the squeal of surprise at such an alien sight._

_“Did I frighten you?” she asked. Her large eyes trembled with concern._

_“I-... I apologize,” I stammered out. “I… those markings...”_

_She laid both her hands on top of her chest, and with a soft breath, the markings reappeared with an even brighter silver glow. “It’s my heart,” she explained, her crestfallen eyes fluttering to a close. “Where I come from, our hearts are the key to our power. See?”_

_Kaguya walked close to a tree and flattened her palm against it. She breathed again, and a pulse reverberated through the foliage. With one gentle push, the tree trunk burst against the pressure of her palm. All I could see was the blinding glow of her crest as it brightened all over her bare chest, and within seconds the giant tree toppled over, severed from its stump as if an axe had cut through it clean._

_Such raw power… I could still feel it along my skin like a shudder. My eyes would not leave the markings, entrancing as they were._

_“Where you come from…” I pointed out, raising a curious brow. “Do you remember where you come from?”_

_Above us was a blindingly sunlit sky. Nary a cloud blocked its piercing light. But she looked up regardless, undaunted by the brightness. Kaguya’s lips curled to a pout, and the glow disappeared. “I don’t remember.”_

_I frowned too. What a mysterious creature…_

_“Perhaps you lost your memories on your way here,” I said by way of consolation._

_“Perhaps,” she mimed again. I quickly learned that this was how Kaguya would learn to live in the world — by example. Like a child in a fully grown woman’s body, she would do her best to mirror humans, to study them, and to_ feel _like them._

_“Come with me,” I said, after a while. “I have a home, and you can stay as long as you like.” I removed my miko’s robes as a gesture and draped it over her shoulders. “There,” I said, smiling, “I’ll tell the castle servants that I found you in the forest, lost and running from bandits.”_

_“Bandits?” she asked, again pouting through the foreignness of it._

_“They’re bad people,” I answered, resuming a sober countenance as I tied a sash over her waist. “But you’ll be safe in my castle. The shogun protects the Emissary and her shrine maidens there.”_

_“Safe,” Kaguya pronounced the word with more warmth than others. “Am I safe with you, Seiros?”_

_I stared at her, surprised at her probing question. “Of course you are,” I reassured her. “Now come.”_

_I grabbed her by the hand and led her back to the castle grounds._

_I called her Kaguya, because she reminded me of stories about other worlds. The creature, whom I adored and loved upon first sight, cheered and blushed at the new name, and she held my hand as I guided her away from the springs. We wove our way through the labyrinth of the forest, running until we found our way back to the castle._

_From the beginning I knew she was strange. She always looked at the world as if she was trying to remember something. Things were both new and yet so strangely familiar to her._

_How was I supposed to know that she had memories of her own? That she had a power that slumbered within her? A power that could change the world? I was a naive shrine maiden then, and to me she was one of those ancient stories come to life. My Kaguya… how heartbroken I was to know that your plan was to leave me all along._

* * *

The rest of the evening was a blur to Byleth. Her eyes were fixed at the horizon, watching as the dark bluish hue of the night sky slowly gave way to the orange streaks of dawn. She was tired, hungry, and restless. Her injuries were all but healed thanks to her outburst against the princess hours before. Yet her complexion stayed a sickly pallor, and her limbs weighed heavily as she walked the dirt road leading to the Emissary’s castle. Using her crest so sporadically was bearing on her health, and now she faced the potential that it wouldn’t activate at all.

Byleth chewed her lower lip, wincing at the headache that was only getting worse.

At the end of the road, her employer was waiting. She was three days late, but what did it matter? She reneged on her contract. More than that, she broke every promise and condition to which she willingly agreed. There was no princess to turn over — dead or alive.

She stopped in the middle of the road. There was a scraping noise as her sandals skidded over the dried ground. The rōnin turned to glance over her shoulder, eyeing the forest that she left behind.

If the princess was smart, she would have listened to her retainer and ridden the opposite direction — miles and miles away, far beyond the clutches of the shoguns. Of course, the princess wasn’t _always_ smart. Even worse, she had a rather irksome penchant to poke her nose where it didn’t belong.

Letting out a tired sigh, Byleth raised her left hand where the torn rag from the princess’s kimono was still tightly bound. The once rich red silk was now faded with the darker discoloration of dried blood. Her fingers closed over the knot until her hand was balled into a fist. _That_ wound was healed as well, but for one reason or another, Byleth never removed the makeshift bandage.

 _‘Be smart, princess,’_ she pleaded — foolish as it was. _‘Don’t come for me.’_ She didn’t exactly know why she felt the need to think such things. There was no way she could hear her, especially not in the recesses of her mind. So why bother?

The rōnin turned to the road ahead and resumed her journey. This time, she would not look back.

* * *

Edelgard stared blankly at the sky as it rolled along the wayward treeline. She leaned back against Hubert, using his taller figure for support as she distracted herself with the playful flickering of sunlight. At times she would wince, startled by the jerky trotting of Hubert’s horse as it bore their combined weight. How many hours had it been since she last saw Byleth? Several? Why did it already feel like a lifetime?

“You seem troubled,” Hubert spoke out of the blue. His gaze was unmoved, fixed at the dirt path ahead of them.

Edelgard nearly jumped. Her retainer was not one to state the obvious, and he was never too keen on small talk either. She sat up and shifted her weight on the horse, glancing at him from over her shoulder. “What makes you say that”?

“You’re gazing at the sky,” he answered plainly, as if it was an adequate explanation for his concern.

“Is that so bad?,” she demurred, reclining against his back once more to exaggerate her fatigue. “I _am_ propped up behind you. There is nothing to gaze at _but_ the sky.” She was more curt than she intended, and Hubert’s rather silent reaction was enough to make her bite her tongue in regret.

Hubert, on the other hand, was dimly aware that the princess was unhappy about the situation. Try as she might, her drawn-out sighs and relentless fidgeting were practically crying for his attention. Yet he had to steel himself for the arduous journey, and the crowded forest floor forced him to take a leisurely pace that exposed them to lingering threats. It was not how he pictured their reunion, to say the least. He had thought she would have been relieved — ecstatic even — that he had carried out his duty before the worst could happen.

“I apologize for my rudeness,” Hubert finally managed to say, erring on the side of caution to appease her blatantly low spirits. The retainer tugged at the reins to coax his horse faster. “I was only concerned for your wellbeing.”

Edelgard bit back another sigh and settled back into an ample pout. She knew he meant no harm. More than that, all Hubert ever did was serve her to the best of his ability. She didn’t know why her patience was so short, or why, indeed, she had been gazing so woefully at the sky rather than thanking him for his unfailing service. A few more stilted moments passed before she tried again.

“Nonsense, you did nothing wrong,” she insisted, taking great care to soften her tone. “I only —…” Edelgard hesitated. Her downtrodden gaze fell to the forest floor, trampled and distant as their steed pushed through the foliage.

Hubert half-turned expectantly, patiently awaiting the rest of her statement.

The princess gulped audibly. She let another breath fall before straightening her posture and assuming a more serious demeanor. “Thank you, Hubert,” she finally spoke. “Thank you for saving me.” She paused once more, this time turning to look up at him. He didn’t face her, but she knew he could sense the smile on her face when she continued, “All my life, I’ve always said I don’t know what I would do without you. This time is no different.”

“I only did what I had to do,” he stated simply.

There was a stuffiness to his words, but the princess saw through its veneer of humility and sensed something more. He was not the best at expressing any form of affection or appreciation, but he had his ways. Edelgard leaned against his back once more, gazing at the sky with a more contented grin.

The air was certainly more pleasant after the exchange. It seemed Hubert was ready to pass the rest of their hours in silence, steering the horse while Edelgard rested.

Although the two were famed to be inseparable — the very pinnacle of a retainer loyal to his liege lord — Hubert and Edelgard had never been forced to confront each other in such prolonged tedium. They had spent hours in her office before, mulling over reports and strategizing victories for the war. But what now? Both had been away from any news of the war for the three days she had been gone. For all Hubert knew, Ferdinand was waiting patiently in the palace while the emperor readied a counterattack for Lady Edelgard’s rescue. For all Edelgard knew, the rōnin was gone, marching to her death at the enemies’ hands…

“You sighed again,” Hubert commented blithely. Edelgard nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. “Clearly, something is troubling you.”

The princess didn’t answer. Instead, she kept her eyes glumly fixed at the sky. With no reports or war at hand, how else would she distract herself?

“I was thinking of the rōnin,” she admitted, surprising herself with such a ready answer. She laid a hand on her chest, pressing her palm firmly against the fabric of her robe in hopes of feeling something — _anything_. “She must be close to the Emissary’s castle by now.”

Hubert cleared his throat in a way that edged close to discomfort. Normally, he would fix his collar or fold his hands behind his back as a sort of nervous habit. Instead he was stuck with the unchanging course of their journey and his hands busy with reining in an otherwise mild-mannered horse.

The rōnin was a subject he’d rather avoid, especially when they so clearly disagreed. He’d hate to break their only recently-attained peace. What else was Hubert supposed to say?

“Certainly she must be,” he responded with a strained sort of disinterestedness. He wanted to end it there, to let the conversation die and any memory of the rōnin along with it. But Hubert had his own faults, and at times curiosity got the better of him. “Is your majesty concerned for the rōnin?” Again, he feigned an aloof demeanor, tilting his head as if the question was a mere pleasantry.

“It’s not that,” Edelgard was quick to say. Her fingers balled into a clenched fist over her collar. “She’s fully capable on her own.”

 _That_ piqued Hubert’s interest. “You seem to think highly of her.” His inflection lingered somewhere between provocation and curiosity.

“She saved my life,” Edelgard whispered, fighting against the pinch in her throat.

“She also endangered it.” Hubert was a little too quick on the counter. The horse whinnied, startled by the unexpected and unpleasant tug from the stirrups. “Whatever you think you owe her, remember that this debt is the result of her attempted kidnapping.”

Hubert was defiant, onerously so. For once in her life, Edelgard met with his stubbornness from the opposite end. Rather than moving mountains for _her_ , he was now moving them _agains_ t her.

“She’s different,” she said in a huff, flinching from her hapless attempt at defending Byleth. For once, she was glad she was facing away from Hubert. She didn’t think she could bear seeing that stern, disapproving look he gave whenever she floundered in her reasoning. “Besides,” she quickly resumed, “I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“Oh?” Hubert mused. “And what reason could possibly justify the attempted kidnapping and murder of the princess?”

Edelgard’s lips pulled into a taut frown. She should’ve known better than to provoke Hubert into a debate. He is normally wary of ever defying her, but Edelgard was quickly finding out that, whenever it came to the subject of the rōnin, nothing was ever normal.

_“The bottom line is... those men are sacrificing for a cause as important as yours. Survival is not any less noble than this 'love' you speak of.”_

Byleth’s words played like a relentless tune in her ear. In truth, she never quite stopped thinking of it. It was far from a political manifesto, but it was pithy and, to Edelgard’s chagrin, undeniably true. “There are many reasons,” she settled, calming herself into a slouch. “Despite her exceptional skill, Byleth is a simple commoner — an ordinary person.” The last bit landed oddly. _Was_ she an ordinary person? “We have no right to judge how people like her choose to survive.”

Edelgard’s words tapered away, drowned by the noisy click of horse hooves treading rocky ground. Her answer seemed adequate, at least for the time being. She knew Hubert wasn’t finished. He always resorted to heavy silences that teemed with his stifling desire to say _something_ , if not for the self-imposed restrictions of hierarchy.

“This war is a result of petty squabbles, of shoguns believing they should have more power for the sake of it.” The air between them became even more stifling. Hubert steered on without so much as a huff. “We created a world where commoners must shed blood for those who never cared for them,” she continued, unable to stew in the tension of his thoughts. “For that, I will never blame her. Survival is just as a noble a cause as ours.”

Edelgard felt herself glow with pride in miming what the rōnin had said. She couldn’t quite work out what it _truly_ meant, for herself or those whom she considered family. What would it be like: to live in a world where nobility was not restricted to those lucky enough to be born into it? The princess tilted her head to the side, feeling whimsical in what was a strangely energizing moment of self-doubt.

“Hm,” Hubert hemmed audibly. Though, if Edelgard heard correctly, there was a positive ring to it. “I never knew you contemplated such … _philosophical_ thoughts.”

“Oh _please_ ,” she whined, rolling her eyes, “‘philosophical’ is hardly the word for it.”

They were joking now, as old friends were wont to do, but Hubert always knew how to cut to the case. “It seems your time with the rōnin was productive, at the very least,” he deadpanned. It was Hubert’s attempt at humor, she knew, but he always managed to sound dismissive while doing so.

Perhaps ‘productive’ _was_ the word for it. Edelgard thought back to the three days — three days that miraculously spanned a lifetime. Her mouth curled back to a smile, letting her thoughts flit from one memory to another: the afternoons walking through the forest on Byleth’s back, her witty banter, the kiss stolen away in the embers of a waning campfire…

Edelgard shook herself out of the dreamy stupor. Just as suddenly, the smile vanished, and she felt herself sink back to the present reality of her life returning to normal.

“Hubert,” she blurted out his name. Her hand, still on her chest, twitched with newfound fervor.

There was an alarming tremor to her voice which Hubert sensed immediately. He tugged at the reins, letting the horse neigh in protest before grinding to a halt.

“I want to go back,” she said stonily. She didn’t at all flinch when Hubert turned to face her, revealing his displeasure.

“We are not going back for her,” he answered firmly.

Edelgard nearly rose. She had _never_ encountered such flagrant disobedience from her retainer. “In the name of the emperor, my father, I _command_ you to turn back.” Her eyes glowed with indignation, souring the otherwise unperturbed blankness of her expression.

“Your majesty, if I may —”

“You may _not_ ,” she cut in. Edelgard stared at him, beside herself with anger. “Turn this horse at once.”

“Lady Edelgard,” he replied after a long, draw-out sigh, “all my life, I have done everything I could to protect you and to fulfill my duty as your retainer. Please, allow me this one indulgence.” For someone so gaunt and otherwise generally sullen, Hubert managed to soften his features. His eyes fixed an imploring look at her. “I beg of you, do not ask me to put you in danger again.”

Edelgard hopped off the horse. She fumbled her landing, remembering a little too late that she had sprained her ankle. But she refused to show any weakness — not in front of him. The princess stormed off with a slight huff in her gait, feigning aloofness amidst Hubert’s cries of protest.

“Your majesty? Your majesty!” Hubert drew the reins in and whipped his horse around. The creature neighed in its bewilderment, shaking off into a slight gallop after her. “Please! Stop this madness!”

Edelgard bit her lip, steering off the path in an effort to avoid him. She fought against the bramble of leaves and branches that barred her way.

“Why is one sellsword worth risking your life? After everything she’s done!” Undeterred, Hubert too jumped off his steed and chased after the disgruntled princess.

“Do not stop me, Hubert!” she snapped. She gritted her teeth as she pulled herself up over a nearby branch, straining against her injuries to hop over the massive felled trees and roots. Strangely enough, she never recalled the rōnin ever having difficulty with this part of the forest.

The scowl on his face deepened when he too struggled to keep up with her. “Say I take you back to the rōnin, what then? What could the two of us do against an army?! Believe me, Lady Edelgard, the sellsword is not worth your life!”

Not that he needed to put much effort in stopping her. The forest did the work for him. The trees, their winding branches, their vines, and their very roots all appeared to conspire against her. Edelgard thrashed against a jutting root, groaning as she pricked herself on a bramble of thorns. In that moment, she would give anything to have her sword back…

“Your majesty!” Hubert grabbed her by the arm — yet another breach in etiquette. He nearly started back, reflexively averse to the idea of being so indelicate with the princess. Still, he did what had to be done, and often being the princess’s retainer meant acting against her royal highness herself, if only for her safety. He audibly gulped as he locked her in a forceful embrace, fighting against her kicking and flailing in an effort to hold her down.

Edelgard thrashed against his arms. Tears bubbled forth from her throat, squeezing at her chest even as her eyes refused to cry. She was angry. Why, exactly, did she agree to be carried away last night? Why did she sit back as Byleth walked to her death, deciding _for_ her as so many others have done? Was _she_ not the princess? The future ruler of the empire? She bit back a tremulous yelp. _‘All my life it has been like this,’_ she thought to herself, focusing her all in resisting Hubert, _‘don’t I get a say in this too?’_

In that moment, her mind flashed back to a similar scene. She was twelve years old again, flailing and fighting for her life. Except back then, it was Hubert's father who held her down, and a boy with golden hair turned to say his goodbye.

 _“Please! Don’t! He’ll die,”_ she had begged. Edelgard hated those memories. She loathed how small her voice sounded; she resented how weak she was — how weak she still is. _“He did nothing wrong!”_

_“You should never have spoken with him princess,” the prime minister had chided her. “He is a sacrifice for the glory of the Emperor, your father. There is nothing we can do! The empire needs a new vessel!”_

_“NO! DIMITRI!”_

_“El?”_

A bloodied shoji screen, the bloodied bodies of all her siblings, her mother, and her father’s concubines all dead on the floor… Will she ever put an end to it all?

Something hot stung her eyes and slithered down her cheeks. Her nails dug into the tree bark of the overgrown root. Despite her best efforts, Edelgard started to cry.

“Lady Edelgard?” Hubert asked, his voice riddled with concern. The princess went limp in his arms, sliding down to the forest floor as she tilted her head up. Looking down, Hubert could see her eyes glisten with the tears she held back.

“Ten years, Hubert…” she said, her voice the softest of whispers. “My heart stopped beating ten years ago.”

Hubert stared at her, stunned by the recollection of a memory he never thought he’d ever hear again.

“Do you know what the rōnin told me?” she asked. Her shoulders shook, accompanied by a sound that closely resembled a chuckle. “She said my heart beats loudly.” She looked sullenly up at the sunlit sky, unbothered by the blurry sight now that the tears set in. “She said that it beats loudly whenever I’m close.” She tilted her head, glancing back at the taller man who held her down in muted shock. “You say she’s not worth my life, but to me she is _everything_.”

The two stood there, locked in an impasse as they mulled over the weight of thinly veiled confessions. Seconds passed before Hubert loosened his grip, letting Edelgard sit upright on the forest floor by herself. A few sniffles and wistful sighs signaled the end to her tears.

“She bears the Crest of Flames,” she revealed. Above her, the cloudless sky tinted into a cheerfully bright blue. The morning was long set in, and the rōnin would’ve undoubtedly closed in on her destination by now. “Somehow, the power that took my family away; the power that sleeps untested in my heart… it’s in _her_ , and she used it to save _me_.” She paused to look up at him, somewhat surprised to see shock written all over his face. “Regardless of what you believe, I owe her my life.”

“You believe you can save everyone,” Hubert readily argued, beside himself with terror and concern. “Frankly, your majesty, that is not possible.”

“No,” answered the princess, dejected in her tone, “I can’t save everyone, but I can save _her_.” Edelgard rose from her spot. This time _she_ towered over her retainer, who still huddled close to the ground. “I am going, regardless of your answer. Whether or not you help me… that is your choice to make, Hubert.”

Hubert smiled. For the first time since she stormed off his horse, he smiled and broke into mirthless laughter. Edelgard winced, finding his… _amusement_ to be somewhat unsettling. Yet something dark and sorrowful trailed his voice, letting this broken cackling taper off into something more somber. The retainer closed his eyes and breathed, calming himself until he could rise and once more stand before the princess.

“Very well.”

* * *

_We spent years in an ignorant sort of bliss. Isolated in the mountains, cloistered with each other and our prayers…_

_The other shrine maidens took to Kaguya quickly. We made her one of our own, becoming a servant of the Emissary for the guidance and benefit of all._

_But we couldn’t live in this bliss forever._

_“The Emissary’s death was a blow to us all. She was a kind woman, a mother and leader_ — _the greatest one of us all.”_

_The monk bowed his hand and clasped his hands together in prayer. I remember the smell of incense and the musty rot of wood._

_I too prayed. I held my hands close, praying for the Emissary’s return to our world._

_Kaguya was not much of a prayer. There was so much about our world she didn’t understand; so much about our mortality she didn’t quite grasp._

_I was so young then. How could I have known?_

_“I’ve never seen that,” she said suddenly. We were in the garden. Our robes still smelled strongly of ash from the funeral pyre._

_“Seen what?” I let my hand graze against the grains before sprinkling them into the pond._

_“I’ve never seen a mortal die,” she answered. Kaguya bowed her head low, laying a fretful hand over her chest. “The Emissary’s heart stopped beating so quickly.”_

_I looked at her, shocked. We had been living together for ten years. I was twenty years old when I met her, and so much has changed. Our kingdom was rife with war, and the Emissary_ — _guardian of the Daimyo_ — _was assassinated. Kaguya, however, hadn’t aged a day. She still stalked the Earth like some innocent being, wild and wondrous compared to us all._

_“You say that as if you’re not a mortal yourself,” I quipped, feigning amusement as my crestfallen eyes watched the ripples that grew further and further away._

_“I am not,” she said, looking at me confused. “You know I’m not.”_

_I held my tongue. Her agelessness, her wanderings, her relentless habit of staring at the stars… It was bothersome. Her youth was an insult to the lives that died each and every single day; that withered and shriveled like flowers caught in mid-winter._

_“Seiros? What’s wrong?”_

_The water splashed with vented violence. The grain from my feeding bag littered its crystal clear waters, and the ripples foamed like waves, trembling before the hand that smote them._

_“Every century, every era… there is war. So much war…” I could still feel the tears as they trickled down my eyes. I could still feel the fire that burned in my throat, like rage eating at everything inside of me. “What good is an Emissary who cannot bring peace?! What good is a new Emissary who repeats the mistakes of the old?! We do not need wisdom. We need_ power.”

_Kaguya looked at me, her expression more placid than the disturbed pond. “Power,” she mimed the word._

_She was not afraid. My fellstar did not at all start back when my hand shot out and grabbed hers, pulling her towards me._

_“With you by my side, things can be different. Things can change._ We _will be that change.”_

 _“What would you have me do?” Her question was sincere, not defiant._ _Kaguya_ _had never before seen war. She had never seen the world outside of our castle. The Emissary and other shrine maidens were all she had. What did she know of what I was about to ask her?_

_“Help me win this war,” I said, bringing her hands close to mine. “And peace shall be ours.”_

* * *

_“Seiros?! Seiros!”_

_The sky was gray on the day I died. The field was awash in our blood. We were losing._

_“Please! Don’t leave me!” But I felt her hand. I clung to its warmth, like a flower craving the first light of spring._

_Around us I still heard the screams of men, of daimyo leading the charge._

_“Don’t die,” she whimpered. It was the first time I saw her cry._

_“Forgive me.” I no longer had feeling in my hand, but I watched as streaks of red seeped into the fabric of my robes. “I failed everyone,” I whispered, crying quietly to myself. “I failed you.”_

_“No.” Kaguya shook her head. “I won’t let you die.”_

_Then a light glowed. It was so bright. I thought for certain that I had died._

_Something hot and heavy sat on my chest._

_“It’s my heart,” she said. With a gentle push of her arm, the stone pulsed and sunk into my very flesh. “Take it.”_

_I never felt greater pain in my life. I felt my skin torn asunder; I felt my bones crack with unbearable weight. Something deep and dark seeded in my heart, and I cried out in agony, begging for the release of death._

_“From now until forever,” Kaguya whispered into my ear, embracing me through my tortured flailing, “my heart is yours.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope Edeleth stans got the reference to one of their supports in this chapter :x


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha oops, how much time has passed?? What??? There was a pandemic? And everything?
> 
> Anyway I am so sorry for the massive delay, but here is your update. It's unfortunately not of the same caliber as the first 7 chapters just because I forced this out of me, but I *highly recommend* you at least re-read the previous chapter to get a better sense of the pacing.

_I wanted to be with you._

_I walked this earth for centuries, in search of you, but you were gone._

_After so long, I gave you up for dead. What else could explain your absence? After all your promises of love and happiness, I refused to believe it. I refused to believe you left me._

_“Your eminence,” they called me. They believed me to be their savior — their Emissary, "there is no sign of Lady Kaguya.”_

_It was autumn when they told me. I can still picture the red leaves that fell with the winds, and the fragrant smell of flowers as they wilted with the cold. I had searched for you all that time, but the last sign… the last trace of your whereabouts led to nothing. They said you had died. They said you fought in a battle against my army, and that you died._

_My hand was shaking, scratching the window sill as I felt the chill autumn breeze._

_“She betrayed me,” I said. They were so clueless. My servants and retainers all looked to each other for answers, completely at a loss._

_The heart in my chest beat violently. Like a storm, it wanted out._

_There were days when I couldn’t control it. That day, it was beyond my powers to even try._

_“She… betrayed… me…”_

_My whole body was shaking._

_“Lady Seiros!”_

_Scales pricked all over my skin as bones sharpened and jutted where they shouldn’t. I tasted the blood of my own flesh, and my eyes drowned in a flash of white light, numbed by the pain that overtook me as a creature beyond reckoning emerged._

* * *

Byleth watched the sky streak red as dusk settled over the low valley. The Emissary’s Castle towered over the horizon, its shadow looming large over the barren fields. Her hand rested on the pommel of her sword, nuzzling the metallic edge of the hilt out of self-soothing habit.

She was late. Three days late, in fact, and she faced her judgment stoically, even as it stood before her in the form of a mounted daimyou — the employer to whom so much was promised.

“So you’ve come.” His voice echoed hollow behind his mask. The daimyou trotted forward on horseback, stopping a few paces short of the ronin. Behind him, Byleth noticed, stood battalions of soldiers, their spears at the ready should she make the wrong move. “I take it you’ve failed to capture the princess.”

She gave a glib shrug of her shoulder, feigning bemusement through the otherwise stifling tension of the air around them.

“Well,” he said, his voice dripping with thinly veiled rage,” where is she?!”

The ronin answered with more undaunted silence.

Despite being masked, the wry grin on the daimyou’s face was palpable. He let out an audible huff as he reeled in his horse’s reins, letting its hooves clobble against the dried and crusted earth. “You’re either a fool or the bravest warrior I’ve ever met,” he taunted, pausing only to brandish his naginata. “Now, which is it?”

In truth, she was afraid. She had never felt so weak in her many years of fighting, and the power that would normally thrum relentlessly in her veins ran faint, as if she had no pulse at all. There was no using her crest today, or any day for that matter. All she had to save her was the sword she had come to rely on for centuries — the blade that started it all.

Byleth slowly unsheathed her katana, baring its edge like fangs for all to see. The metal sliced through the air with hardly a whistle. Nothing save the fleeting glimmer of sunlight could catch its swift movements.

“In my many years in this world, Lord Daimyou,” she started, giving a wan smile as she raised the sword over her shoulder in an offensive stance, “I found no difference between bravery and foolishness.”

Her answer seemed to amuse him, for he lost no time in getting off his horse. The ground thudded with the impact of his landing. The mere rattling of his armor made Byleth wince from the surprising intimidation of his approach.

“You know what this means,” he said with a slight hint of disappointment in his tone.

Byleth nodded, finding no use in such small and meaningless conversation.

The blade of his naginata gleamed crimson against the glow of twilight. Byleth squinted at its sheen, squaring her knees as she laid a hand on the hilt of her sword.

“The Emissary told me you might recognize this weapon,” the Daimyou called out as he stalked closer. The edge of the blade dragged against the dirt. The very sound of it grated against Byleth’s ears, who seemed to feel more than discomfort as she watched its ivory edge burn with the friction. “It was my father’s weapon — the last relic made of dragon bone.”

The ronin flinched in her spot. Her hand trembled, staying on the hilt a little too long.

He seized the opportunity and swung the naginata overhead.

A thin line of shadow closed in from above.

‘No!’

Byleth unsheathed her sword in an instant and parried the swing as it grazed against her shoulder.

The blade left a cloud of dust as it pierced the ground. The weapon seemed to rattle on its own from having tasted her blood.

“I was going to save it for that girl’s head.” The Daimyou wrenched his weapon free, and its small bone-like tendrils bristled with life now that it had breached the surface. “But yours will have to do.”

A pulse.

Byleth recoiled as a sharp piercing screech rang relentlessly in her ears. Her knees caved as she lost her grip over her katana.

The naginata glowed as he swung it over head, and a bright red aura burned alight on his black armor. “You’re not the only one with the power of a god!” With another cry, he felled the blade as a white flash enveloped his figure.

The ronin raised her sword in time, but the blunt force of the blow sent a crack through the sword’s body.

The Daimyou roared as he pushed further down, mounting pressure until he sliced through the katana in half. Byleth watched in shock as the tip of his blade cut clean through her flesh.

Byleth let out a piercing cry as the blow sent her flying. Her back flattened against the hard, rocky ground. She struggled to breathe as burning pain seared across her chest.

“You’re weaker than I thought. No wonder you failed your mission.”

She couldn’t get up. Her mind, her legs.... Her entire being screamed for her to get up. But all she could do was raise her hand and watch as it reddened with fresh blood pooling close to her stomach.

The sounds of his encroaching footsteps drowned out the thrashing in her head. All she could do was watch as his figure now loomed over her. “The Emissary told me you were a god,” he scoffed. He raised his metallic boots and stamped them hard on her chest. Byleth coughed and cried out from the dulling pain. Her hands shot up to stop him, only to fail against his inhuman strength. The Daimyou then let his naginata trace a line over her wound. Somehow, it felt like ravenous fangs tasting, for the first time in centuries, living flesh. “But gods don’t bleed!”

He gave another kick against her ribs, and the strike tore a blood-curdling sob from her throat.

The Daimyou gave out a low and dark chuckle as he paused to remove his helmet. Knotted strands of golden hair flew free from the mask, and before long she was faced with a young but hardened man. His eyes were the color of the sky — foreign, but piercing and cool. Staring her down, he spoke with a crooked sort of smile, “I’ll have to bring her your head as proof.”

The army behind him cheered now that he edged close to victory.

Byleth answered with a deep inhalation, pooling all the spittle and blood in her mouth before spitting it up at his boot with a guttural cough. “Well?!” she taunted, gesturing at the open gash close her stomach, “I don’t have all day!”

The Daimyou scowled. His complexion paled as his nostrils flared with indomitable rage. His naginata hovered above her eyes once more. Again, the blade seemed to teem with life, growling like a beast waiting for its prey.

“Goodbye, ronin. It seems you will finally die by my hand.”

Byleth closed her eyes. A subtle yet wistful smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. After centuries, she could finally rest. And it would be at the hands of her kin, no doubt. The naginata was practically snarling for her blood. She could feel it, humming as it did with insatiable hunger.

_‘Forgive me Seiros,’_ she prayed to herself. _‘I failed to save you.’_

“Not if I have anything to say about it!”

The two spun to the distant cry of a woman. A subtle but familiar whistling sound shot through the air. Byleth knew it by now. She had faced it too often.

The smile on her face grew wider, and throwing her arms over her head, she curled and drowned out the hot blast of air that engulfed the two warriors. All around them, she heard the cries of fallen soldiers as they fell unwittingly to a bomb. The ground beneath them seemed to shake, and everything now smelled of ash and blood.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” the Daimyou roared at his scattered army. “REFORM THE LINE! ALL OF YOU!”

His orders were all but ignored. Dust and smoke clouded over the entire battlefield, and the army was lost in confusion as more bombs, preceded by the sharp whistling noise, exploded into flames all around them.

_‘That fool!’_

Byleth hissed with pain as she felt her limbs return to life. Her hand reached for the hilt of her broken sword, using it to proper herself up as she pressed her free hand against the gaping wound on her side.

“We’re under attack!”

“Protect our lord!”

Panicked cries of the surrounding soldiers littered the air. The din of metal as they confusedly searched for the missing enemy was deafening. Byleth pressed her advantage and crawled further away to safety.

“You!” the Daimyou growled at her, “I’m not done with you!”

He roared as he swung his weapon once more. Byleth instinctively raised up her arms in flimsy defense.

But instead she heard the clamor of pure steel biting steel. The ronin opened her eyes and saw, standing before her, the smaller figure of the princess. Her body seemed to tremble as she struggled to maintain her defense, holding her ground against the legendary weapon with an ordinary katana.

“What are you doing?!” Byleth immediately shot up from the ground. “You were supposed to go home!”

“As if I would ever leave you!” Edelgard fired back. She roared as she pushed with all her might and deflected the weight of the Daimyou’s naginata.

“You!” he said, grinding his teeth with seething fury. The Daimyou’s steely blue eyes narrowed as he closed in on newfound prey.

Edelgard started back in surprise and jumped back closer to the ronin. She lowered her sword, gawking at the Daimyou with undue interest.

“What are you doing?!” Byleth grabbed her by the shoulder. “Run!”

But Edelgard didn’t hear her. She was miles away. From the corner of her eye, Byleth glimpsed Edelgard’s lip quiver as she uttered, under her breath, a name.

“Dimitri…?!” The princess raised her sword at the last second, but his unmatchable strength forced her back. “You’re supposed to be dead!”

Dimitri roared as his jaw clenched, focusing all of his power in the red glow that now flowed from his naginata.

“And you should have died long ago!”

Edelgard paled. All life drained from her face as she froze on the spot. Her sword hand trembled violently. It was as if she had seen a ghost.

“Princess!” Byleth cried out.

All Edelgard could recall was the thin line of his blade meeting her eyes, but then the seconds blurred as her mind went blank. All she could recall was the violent shove she felt from her side and the cold, hard ground as it slammed against her face.

She felt nothing. She could see nothing.

_‘But why is it so warm?’_

Her hands were shaking. Her eyes snapped up to the figure above her. Dark blue hair waved over her, sprawling as a bone-like weapon pierced a hole through Byleth’s chest.

A pulse waved over them all, and the tendrils of the weapon opened up, as if it was drinking in its fallen opponent’s blood.

"Byleth…?"

All sound sank into a void. Edelgard could hear nothing. She felt lost, sinking into the depths with nowhere to go.

In front of her, Dimitri — her long lost friend — had slain the ronin.

* * *

_‘That idiot.’_

Her heart stopped beating a long time ago.

Byleth knew it was the end of the line.

She had used up the last of her power, resonating with the crest that no doubt laid dormant in Edelgard’s body.

_‘But that was it._ ’ A smile ghosted across her lips as ruby droplets trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her hand held onto the thrumming naginata, stopping it from piercing further into where her heart should have been.

Before her, the man called Dimitri stared at her with those icy blue eyes. Nothing — neither pity nor anger — gleamed in those cold, dead eyes.

“Begone,” he hissed. Dimitri pulled the naginata free from Byleth’s body, unfazed by the gut-wrenching sound of flesh tearing free from sharpened fangs.

Blood sputtered out of Byleth’s mouth. She couldn’t say anything. She couldn’ do anything. The whole world had gone black.

“Byleth! NO!” Edelgard cried out. Her words came out like a choked up sob as she ran up and caught the ronin by her arms. “You idiot!” she sobbed. Hot tears flowed like a stream down her face as she hugged the ronin close. “You idiot… you idiot!” The princess cradled Byleth, clinging to the warmth of her dying body for as long as she could.

Byleth smiled. She wanted to say something, but everything hurt.

_‘I was about to say the same to you…’_

A violent cough broke out, drowning her throat with the blood that now filled her lungs. She did her best to reach out with her hand, but it shook in the air, twitching with fading life as it struggled to obey her will.

_‘What a joke,’_ she laughed to herself, amused at the irony of it all. Staring at Edelgard’s face, she wanted nothing more than to hold it. Three days, and she couldn't have what was there all along.

“LADY EDELGARD!” Hubert’s voice roared in the distance, and the incessant whistling of bombs had all but stopped.

Behind them, Dimitri closed in. The shadow of his towering figure engulfed them both. “It is time to atone for your sins, Edelgard.” His voice was low, yet it left a bone shuddering chill in Edelgard’s spine.

The princess stayed anchored to the muddied ground, holding Byleth close as tears welled in her eyes.

“Byleth, listen to me,” she whispered close to the ronin’s ear, undaunted as Dimitri raised his weapon overhead. “I have something to tell you.”

Their lives were over. Byleth was sure of it. Dimitri did not hesitate when he squared his stance, aiming squarely for Edelgard’s neck. She lurched forward, trying with her remaining strength to push the princess out of the way.

But Edelgard would not be swayed. Instead, she grabbed Byleth’s paralyzed hand and pulled it close to her chest. “My heart… It isn’t mine. It was given to me.”

_‘Edelgard!’_ she wanted to cry out. _‘Move!”_

“I was told… it belonged to a god, but I never quite believed it…” Laughter tapered her words as she pressed her chin against Byleth’s temple. Her shoulders trembled now that she was near death’s door. “But I believe in you, Byleth.”

Another thrum, low and barely perceptible, emanated like a pulse from Edelgard’s chest. She could feel her hand press deeper into the other woman’s skin, somehow feeling hot as a faint glow enveloped them both.

“I give you my heart,” whispered Edelgard, “so you may save us all.”

It hurt.

Byleth could see nothing.

She felt nothing.

_‘Everything hurts,’_ were the only words that seared into her brain as all around her, a white light bathed the world. Something throbbed and burned in her chest, and silver hair wrapped like tendrils all over her face.

“LOOK OUT!”

“LORD DIMITRI! TAKE COVER!”

Cries were heard all over, but Byleth was deaf to them. All she could hear were her own blood-curdling screams and the piercing whistle of air burning from the pressure of her glowing form.

Soon, her cries became something else. They became a roar, and by the time Byleth could open her eyes again, she saw nothing but the red-streaked skies of daylight and the silvery wisp of clouds as they spiraled close to her talons.

_‘Edelgard!’_ she wanted to call out, but a more ominous, thunderous bellow of a creature filled the heavens.

The princess, for her part, said nothing. She was asleep on the soft cushion of green hair and pallid white scales. There was nothing now save the more violent tug of blustering winds and the blinding kiss of the sun.

Edelgard couldn’t believe it. She was flying.

A smile tugged at her lips as she closed her eyes, falling asleep as a dragon carried her away from the battlefield and into the heavens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you stay on and continue to wait for me to slog through this. I love this story, despite what I might say on Twitter, and I'm happy to try to finish it -- however long it takes!


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